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THE SLAV INVASION 

AND 

THE MINE WORKERS 














<■ 






























































THE SLAV INVASION 

AND 

THE MINE WORKERS 

A STUDT IN IMMIGRATION 


FRANK JULIAN WARNE, Ph.D. 



PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
1904 

a. 


library of congress 

Two Copies Received 

APR 25 1904 

Cepyrieht Entry 

~ O'r 

CLASS cc XXc. No. 

§* JT 7- s 4T 

COPY A 


.SsWa 



Copyright, 1904 

BY 

J. B. Lippincott Company 


Published April, 1904 



Printed by 

J. B . Lippincott Company , Philadelphia , U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Mine Workers’ Earlier Struggles_ 13 

II. The Downfall of the Union. 28 

III. The Coming of the Slav. 39 

IV. The Slav in the Anthracite Region. 47 

V. Effect upon the English-Speaking Races.. 52 

VI. A Conflict of Standards of Living. 65 

VII. Slav Competition and the Miners’ Strikes. 84 

VIII. Some Present-Day Tendencies. 98 

IX. The Task Before the Union. 118 

X. In Strike Times. 134 


5 




































































* 























* * 
















* 



























































INTRODUCTION 


The recent change in the character of immi¬ 
gration to the United States, by which natives 
of Poland, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Italy, 
etc., have very largely supplanted those previ¬ 
ously coming from Ireland, England, Wales, 
Germany, Scotland, etc., is having far-reaching 
effects upon American institutional and indus¬ 
trial life. This particular study in immigra¬ 
tion points out the most important of these effects 
by presenting the results of a first-hand investi¬ 
gation of actual conditions in the anthracite coal¬ 
fields of Northeastern Pennsylvania. 

This book shows how the competition of the 
so-called Slav races, including the Italian, for the 
places in and about the hard-coal mines of the 
English-speaking mine-workers—the Irish, Eng¬ 
lish, Welsh, Germans, Scotch, etc.—has resulted 
in a conflict between these two distinct groups for 
industrial supremacy in hard-coal mining, and 

7 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


how this is forcing the English-speaking nation¬ 
alities out of this industry and out of that section. 
The strikes of 1900 and 1902 were mere surface 
indications of the wide-spread industrial unrest 
which naturally accompanies this struggle; they 
should be regarded as mere episodes in this great 
conflict of races. While emphasis is herein prop¬ 
erly laid upon the industrial characteristics of this 
immigration—for immigration in the anthracite 
region is primarily an industrial problem—atten¬ 
tion is also directed towards some of its educa¬ 
tional, religious, political, and general social 
features. 

In face of the tendency for the better citi¬ 
zen type of English-speaking mine-workers to 
leave the coal-fields, will the American communi¬ 
ties in the anthracite-producing counties be able 
to assimilate the enormous influx of the Slav 
element ? It is upon the answer to this question 
that so much depends. The best that can be 
said now is that this power of assimilation in 
Northeastern Pennsylvania, if not overestimated, 
is being weakened by the heavy task thrust upon 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


it, and that unless aid conies from other sources 
it may be questioned whether American ideals 
and institutions are to be equal to the work of 
making the Slav immigrant into an American 
citizen. The one bright ray of hope lighting up 
the uncertain future is shed from the activity in 
these coal-fields of the United Mine Workers of 
America. With this organization, to a much 
greater degree than most of us realize, rests the 
solution of many of the problems presented in 
the hard-coal producing communities. Its power 
of uniting the mine-workers of all nationalities 
and creeds and tongues—of bringing together 
the Slav and the English-speaking employees on 
the common ground of industrial self-interest— 
has only recently been demonstrated. Through 
this it is breaking down the strong racial ties 
which until its entrance into the region kept the 
two groups apart. In brief, this organization is 
socializing the heterogeneous mass. In thus in¬ 
dicating the task the United Mine Workers of 
America is performing, * and must continue to 
perform, the writer does not lose sight of the fact 


10 


INTRODUCTION 


that its presence in the hard-coal fields gives rise 
to other and just as important problems for or¬ 
ganized society to solve. 

As for the English-speaking races engaged in 
hard-coal mining, it is plain that the success of 
the United Mine Workers of America in the 
strikes of 1900 and 1902 is to be only a tempo¬ 
rary respite. Their supremacy in the anthracite 
mining industry is soon to be a thing of the past, 
as the Slav nationalities, with their great power 
of industrial competition, have already secured 
too strong a foothold. 

If the writer is able to present and to indicate 
the tendencies of the more important industrial' 
forces which this Slav immigration has put in 
operation in the anthracite region; if he has 
impressed the fact that the problem in the hard- 
coal fields, although presented there, perhaps, in 
a more acute form, is, nevertheless, but part of a 
universal problem encountered in nearly every 
section of the United States; if he has sufficiently 
indicated that intelligent and united efforts are 
' needed to control these forces of immigration for 


INTRODUCTION 


ii 


the welfare of society and for the preservation of 
our institutions; if the writer has done all this 
his labors will have been well repaid. If some 
rational action is not taken to remedy the condi¬ 
tions which the United States have permitted to 
develop in the Pennsylvania hard-coal fields, it is 
just as certain that organized society will reap 
the inevitable consequences, as it is that to-mor¬ 
row’s sun is to rise in the morning. 

This race problem in the anthracite region was 
first presented to the writer during the strike of 
1900, while in the fields as staff correspondent 
for the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in which 
capacity he also served during the strike of 1902. 
His investigations, extending now over a period of 
nearly four years, have strongly confirmed these 
first impressions as to the underlying economic 
cause of the industrial unrest in that section of 
our country. An attempt to express its salient 
features was first made in The Outlook of Au¬ 
gust 30, 1902, in an article, “ The Real Cause 
of the Miners’ Strike.” In September-October, 
1903, a series of eleven articles in the Philadel- 


12 


INTRODUCTION 


phia Public Ledger, under the title, “ Slav In¬ 
vasion of the Anthracite Region,” discussed the 
problem in greater detail. The reception ac¬ 
corded these presentations of the subject has 
led to the writing of this book, in which is set 
forth a more complete analysis of the situation. 

During the preparation of this volume the 
writer has held the Senior Fellowship in Eco¬ 
nomics in the Department of Philosophy of the 
University of Pennsylvania. 

F. J. W. 

Philadelphia, March 16, 1904. 


THE SLAV INVASION 

AND 

THE MINE WORKERS 


CHAPTER I 

THE MINE WORKERS’ EARLIER STRUGGLES 

In the recent achievements of organized labor 
in the anthracite coal-fields of Pennsylvania, 
those earlier hopeful, futile struggles of a gen¬ 
eration ago bid fair to be forgotten. Yet the 
way to ultimate success for the United Mine 
Workers of America was paved by the Benevo¬ 
lent Association of the early seventies; and, 
dear as John Mitchell is to those whose cause he 
has championed, there stands in the little mining 
town of St. Clair, in Schuylkill County, a monu¬ 
ment to a leader in his day no less indefatigable 
and beloved. The history of labors’ conflict with 
capital in the Pennsylvania hard-coal mines pre- 


13 




14 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

vious to the coming of the Slav is, in the main, 
comprised in the story of John Siney and of that 
vigorous—yet ill-starred—organization which he 
promoted and led through most of its seven 
years of conflict. 

Coal-mining was undertaken in the anthracite 
region of Pennsylvania as early as 1820; but until 
the close of the Civil War the line between op¬ 
erator and miner was not very distinctly drawn. 
It was not unusual to find the operator and miner 
one and the same person, and it may be held as 
generally true that the operator had at one time 
been a miner. During all this period the strug¬ 
gles most worthy of emphasis were those be¬ 
tween individuals as to the quantity of coal-lands 
and the number of mines each should secure. 
Yet differences between employers and employed 
not unnaturally arose then, as later; and as early 
as 1849 these had led to the formation, particu¬ 
larly in the Schuylkill field, of an organization 
which, from the name of a local leader, was called 
Bates Union. But a strike for an increase of 
wages was unsuccessful, dissensions arose among 


THE MINE WORKERS 


15 


the members, their leader betrayed them and 
stole their funds, and the union died an early 
death. 

No general movement for organizing the hard- 
ccal mine-workers is again in evidence until 
about the close of the Civil War. In the late 
fifties the establishment among the mine-workers 
of the Forestville Improvement Company of an 
organization “ for mutual protection,” led to 
the foundation of local unions in different parts 
of the region. These now sprang into renewed 
activity; and in 1868 we have accounts of a gen¬ 
eral convention of their representatives from all 
three fields meeting to consider the general fall 
in prices and the problem of over-production of 
coal. Wages had already been reduced the pre¬ 
vious year, and now other reductions were threat¬ 
ened. 

This condition had been brought about prin¬ 
cipally by the unrestrained competition, or rather 
speculation, which the close of the war, with the 
release of capital for investment and of men for 
work, had brought to the industry. It was 


16 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

marked by a general exteusion of the railroads, 
which were being substituted for the canals in the 
transportation to market of the larger part of the 
product of the mines. This railway construc¬ 
tion not only opened up new markets, but it 
brought into operation such a large number of 
mines as to emphasize all the evils of over-pro¬ 
duction. The total output of the anthracite re¬ 
gion in i860 was 8,500,000 tons; this had nearly 
doubled by 1870, the production in that year ex¬ 
ceeding 16,000,000 tons. This increase came, 
too, at a time when bituminous coal was coming 
into more general use in manufactures, thus 
weakening the demand for the anthracite prod¬ 
uct. The only help for the miners against such 
adverse conditions lay in organization and 
enlightened leadership, and these were forth¬ 
coming. 

First as a bricklayer, and afterwards as a 
worker in English cotton-mills, John Siney was 
thoroughly trained in the successful methods of 
trade-unionism in the Old Country. He perhaps 
the first, certainly the most clearly, of all their 


THE MINE WORKERS 


17 


leaders, saw that only by regulation of produc¬ 
tion could the mine-workers hope for regular 
wages. Experience had taught the men that 
over-production meant falling prices and reduced 
wages. Siney showed them that it was to their 
best interest to control that production rather 
than to wait until falling prices brought de¬ 
creased wages and the inevitable strike. Out of 
this clear conception of economic conditions 
came the genesis of the Workingman’s Benevo¬ 
lent Association (afterwards known under a 
charter as the Miners’ and Laborers’ Benevolent 
Association), which was formed after the gen¬ 
eral convention of 1868. According to its con¬ 
stitution its objects were to maintain a standard 
of wages, to provide for sick and disabled miners, 
and to care for their widows and orphans.* 

But the necessity for organization was not 
alone apparent to the miners. A year or two 


* Article I. of the constitution of the Summit Hill 
branch stated that “the object of the society is to make 
such arrangements as will enable the operator and the 
miner to rule the coal-market. ,, 



18 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

prior to the birth of their association the oper¬ 
ators had already formed co-operative associa¬ 
tions in each of the three fields, and when the first 
great struggle came these groups of employers 
were united under the Anthracite Board of 
Trade of the Schuylkill Coal Region. It is 
through this board that we first find the operators 
treating with the mine-workers as to wages and 
other conditions of employment. 

The first strike of the mine-employees under 
the Workingman’s Benevolent Association was 
declared on July I, 1868, ostensibly for the en¬ 
forcement of the State eight-hour law, which 
had just then been enacted by the State Legisla¬ 
ture through the efforts of the miners, but in 
reality to deplete the coal-market, which had been 
glutted by the preceding period of speculation 
and over-production. In the latter direction only 
had the strike any apparent success, and even 
this was but temporary. In May of the follow¬ 
ing year over-production was as bad as ever. 
The operators now proposed a reduction in 
wages; but the association decided upon a sus- 


THE MINE WORKERS 


19 


pension of mining, which became effective May 
10. Its object was the reduction or depletion 
of the surplus of coal already in the market and 
the prevention of the enormous over-supply, 
which the miners feared would not only keep 
the price of labor down to the prices of the pre¬ 
vious winter, but would eventually compel local 
suspensions, still greater reductions of wages, 
and, in consequence, local strikes. This was 
stated in the order of the Miners’ and Laborers’ 
Association of June 9, 1869, directing the miners 
to return to work in all the districts where they 
“ can agree with their employers as to basis and 
conditions of resumption.” At the same time, 
in reply to general criticism which the suspension 
had met with from the press, the order explained 
that “ we do not nor have desired to run the coal 
too high in the market, but, on the contrary, we 
prefer the steady, healthy market, which will 
afford to the operators and dealers fair interest 
on their investment and at the same time receive 
for our share a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s 
work.” In order to guard against future over- 


20 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


production certain restrictions were placed upon 
the men by the association, such as requiring the 
miners to load one car of coal less per day than 
formerly. 

The suspension had lasted five weeks, and re¬ 
sulted in the adoption of that “ sliding scale” 
about which so many of the later battles of mine- 
labor were destined to be waged. The sliding 
scale was simply an agreement that the wages of 
miners in the Lehigh and Schuylkill fields * 
should be regulated according to the selling price 
of coal. At this time contract miners working 
on the mammoth vein were receiving fifty-seven 
and one-half cents a ton (forty-eight cubic 
feet) ; company miners (those working by the 
day) sixteen dollars a week; and inside laborers 
fourteen dollars a week. For the Lehigh fields 
these wages were to prevail when coal sold for 
five dollars a ton at tide-water (Elizabethport), 

* The miners of the Wyoming field had not taken a 
very prominent part in the suspension, being induced by 
higher wages to continue at work, and in consequence 
they did not secure the sliding scale. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


21 


with an increase of fifteen per cent, for every 
one dollar advance above that price. In the 
Schuylkill field Port Carbon was the basing point 
and three dollars a ton the selling price of coal; 
for every twenty-five cents increase over this 
price wages were to advance five cents a ton. 
Wages were not to be affected if the price at 
either basing point fell below the basis rate. On 
this sliding scale arrangement the miners, during 
the remaining months of 1869, received twelve 
per cent, more than the basis wages. 

Difficulties arose at once over this sliding scale. 
For 1870 the Board of Trade proposed that the 
basis in the Schuylkill field be made two dollars 
a ton. This meant to the miners a reduction in 
wages of from twenty-five to forty per cent., and 
the association refused to consider it. In Janu¬ 
ary the Board improved somewhat their proposi¬ 
tion, but still providing for a reduction in wages. 
The association insisted upon a continuance of 
the three dollar basis, and on April 2 the 
Schuylkill operators inaugurated a lockout, 
which lasted until August 1. The mines in the 


22 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Lehigh and Wyoming fields remained in opera¬ 
tion. In July an agreement was reached on the 
old three dollar basis, but with an eight and one- 
quarter per cent, sliding scale for each move¬ 
ment of twenty-five cents in the price of coal. A 
still more important change was made: wages 
were now to be affected if the price fell below the 
basis just the same as when the price went above 
the basis. The price of coal soon fell below the 
basis and remained there, with the result that the 
miners were forced to accept reductions instead 
of securing increases, as in the previous year. 

Out of this Schuylkill lockout came what is 
believed to be the first signed joint agreement 
in the history of coal-mining in this country. 
It was entered into July 29, at Pottsville, be¬ 
tween a committee of the Workingman's Benevo¬ 
lent Association, representing the mine-workers, 
and one of the Anthracite Board of Trade, repre¬ 
senting the operators. 

On the part of the association it was agreed 
not to sustain a man discharged for incom¬ 
petency, bad workmanship, bad conduct, or other 


THE MINE WORKERS 


23 


legitimate cause. Each man was to work regu¬ 
larly; and miners earning designated amounts 
above one hundred dollars a month, excluding 
expenses, were to accept a reduction in wages 
ranging from ten to forty per cent. On the part 
of the operators it was agreed not to discharge 
any man or officer for actions or duties imposed 
upon him by the Workingman’s Benevolent As¬ 
sociation. For obtaining the monthly prices of 
coal upon which wages were based the president 
of the Board of Trade and the president of the 
Association of Schuylkill County “ shall meet 
(on the) twentieth day (of) each month and se¬ 
lect five operators, who shall, on the 25th inst. 
following, produce a statement, sworn or affirmed 
to, of the prices of coal at Port Carbon for all 
sizes above pea coal. The five operators shall be 
selected from a list of those shipping over 40,000 
tons annually, and none shall be selected a sec¬ 
ond time until the list is exhausted. The price 
of coal so obtained shall fix the rates of wages 
for that month.” The agreement was signed by 
five operators and five miners. 


24 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


But the agreement was made only to be broken. 
Following continued over-production, which kept 
both prices and wages low, each side began to 
accuse the other of breach of faith. When the 
working of the sliding scale in 1870 brought a 
decrease instead of an increase in wages, the 
leaders found it impossible to control the mine- 
workers, and they went out on a strike at the be¬ 
ginning of 1871, the entire anthracite region 
becoming involved. In the Wyoming field, 
where the sliding scale had never been in force, 
the miners struck against a proposed reduction 
in wages equivalent to thirty-four per cent, on 
contract work. Ignoring the association, the 
operators of the Schuylkill field attempted to 
treat directly with their employees, but in this 
they failed. Next they began the importation of 
new men to operate their mines, which was fol¬ 
lowed by riots and the calling out of the militia. 
Securing possession of the arms of the soldiers, 
the miners marched to every mine where work 
had been resumed with non-union men and com¬ 
pelled a suspension of operations. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


25 


On April 17, through the efforts of Eckley B. 
Coxe, an operator at Drifton, and President 
Siney, of the Workingman’s Benevolent Asso¬ 
ciation, a joint committee of miners and oper¬ 
ators, representing all three fields, met at Mauch 
Chunk in the hope of arbitrating the questions 
in dispute. The most important of these dealt 
with wages and, of course, with the sliding scale; 
the attitude of the operators towards the miners’ 
organization; the interference of the associa¬ 
tion with non-union men and the operation of 
the mines. No agreement could be reached by 
the committee on any of these points; but one 
month later a decision by Judge William El well, 
who had previously been agreed upon as umpire, 
proved satisfactory to both sides, and mining 
operations were resumed. In the umpire’s de¬ 
cision the sliding scale for the Schuylkill field 
was to be one cent for each three cents’ rise and 
fall in the price of coal, with a two dollar and 
seventy-five cent basis, but if the price of coal 
fell below two dollars and twenty-five cents there 
was to be no further fall in wages. The other 


26 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


questions were to be submitted to arbitration 
boards in each of the three fields, to be composed 
of three operators and three miners, and, if 
necessary, there was to be an umpire for each 
field. 

And yet again, before the end of the year, 
both operators and miners were disregarding the 
award. There were local strikes for increased 
wages, which demands some of the operators at 
once granted. At one or two collieries, when the 
price of coal fell below two dollars and seventy- 
five cents, the miners refused to accept a corre¬ 
sponding reduction in wages. In not a few cases 
the advice of the leaders, who endeavored to hold 
the men to their agreement, was disregarded. 
Despite these and other difficulties, the agree¬ 
ment was renewed each year until 1874, at joint 
meetings of committees representing the Board 
of Trade and the Workingman’s Benevolent As¬ 
sociation. For 1872 the basis was made two dol¬ 
lars and fifty cents, and wages were not to fall 
below the price set by it for more than two 
months of the year. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


27 


On the whole, prices and wages were fairly 
well maintained during this period by the 
sliding scale agreement which the Benevolent 
Association had brought about, and the perma¬ 
nent success of the association may have seemed 
assured. Yet already at work were the forces 
which were to overthrow it, with most of what 
it had accomplished for mine-labor in Eastern 
Pennsylvania. 


28 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


CHAPTER II 

THE DOWNFALL OF THE UNION 

Among the many reasons for the ultimate 
failure of the trade-union movement in the an¬ 
thracite coal-region, three causes are written so 
large that they may not be misread. The first 
was a defect inherent in nearly all such move¬ 
ments—the inability to control all the workers 
in the three fields. This alone might in time 
have been overcome; but beyond it lay two 
factors that could neither be foreseen nor reck¬ 
oned with. The one was railway ownership of 
the mines, and the other the “ Mollie Maguires.” 

In every industry, in every community, is to 
be found the individual whose unenlightened self- 
interest leads him to the commission of acts 
which, while they seem to be for his immediate 
advantage, nevertheless cause injury, if not de¬ 
struction, to the interests of his fellow-men. The 
community frames more or less effective laws to 


THE MINE WORKERS 


29 


control the acts or person of this individual and 
to safeguard the public welfare. But unless an 
expression of the united moral sentiment is effec¬ 
tive, the industrial organization has no such con¬ 
trolling device. Despite the small area confining 
the anthracite industry, the parties to the agree¬ 
ments already described could not force them 
upon all producers of hard coal. During the 
attempt of 1868-76 to work out a satisfactory 
co-operative plan of production, only once were 
the mine-workers of all three districts united in 
a common cause—and then, as will be seen, the 
harmony came too late. 

Nor were the operators united. While as a 
class they had organized the Anthracite Board 
of Trade, it was confined, for the most part, to 
the operators in the Schuylkill and Lehigh fields, 
not a few of the Wyoming operators being be¬ 
yond its jurisdiction. These were usually the 
men who played havoc with the well-wrought 
plans of the miners’ union and the operators’ or¬ 
ganization in their attempts to benefit the greater 
number engaged in the industry. They did this 


30 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


in 1869, when the Lehigh and Schuylkill miners 
suspended work to deplete the over-supplied 
market, by temporarily advancing wages. The 
object, of course, was to enable them to increase 
their output and their profits at the expense of 
their fellow-operators in the lower fields. In 
1870, when the Schuylkill miners again entered 
upon a suspension, the same thing happened— 
the Wyoming and Lehigh men were kept at work 
through a compromise with their employers. 
In 1871 the Wyoming operators, finding they 
could not pay these higher wages while all three 
fields were in operation, attempted a reduction. 
This the miners opposed by inaugurating a 
strike. Believing they had now an opportunity 
to unite the mine-workers of all three fields, the 
Schuylkill miners, despite the agreement they 
had entered into with the operators, joined the 
Wyoming men on strike. With the entire region 
idle, the self-interest of the operators in the Wy¬ 
oming field led them to offer their men the old 
rates of wages, and, after a four-weeks’ strike, 
they attempted to resume work. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


3 i 


And now there entered the second great factor 
in the overthrow of the Benevolent Association. 
The railroads, which heretofore had confined 
their function to the transportation of coal, be¬ 
gan to buy coal-lands and to enter upon mining 
operations. The repeated strikes and suspensions 
and lockouts had made the transportation of coal 
so uncertain that the revenues of the railroads 
were considerably affected. The interests of the 
railroads,—that of the Reading in particular, 
which had entered the region in 1842,—as in¬ 
terpreted by those then at their head, pointed to 
the proprietorship of the mines, if they were to 
be certain of the product for transportation, 
especially as other railroads were rapidly being 
built into the region and were beginning to com¬ 
pete for the traffic. 

The first indication of the changed policy of 
the railroads was given when the operators at¬ 
tempted to resume mining in 1871. Without 
warning, the railroads raised the freight rates on 
coal to figures hitherto unheard of. The rates of 
the Reading were trebled at one bound. The 


32 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


price of coal, of course, soared with the freight 
rates. Anxious as were the operators to pro¬ 
duce coal after the long period of enforced idle¬ 
ness, they closed at once their just reopened 
mines. Public excitement ran high, and a legis¬ 
lative committee was appointed to investigate 
the situation. But the railroads had the upper 
hand, and they knew it. The legislative com¬ 
mittee made a favorable report as to the legality 
of their acts, and the results they had planned 
for were attained. Many of the operators were 
forced to sell to the railroad companies, inaugu¬ 
rating a period of rapid railway purchase of 
coal-lands which has continued down to the pres¬ 
ent day. There are to-day less than seventy-five 
“ independent” operators in the entire region. 

This direct entrance of the transportation com¬ 
panies into the situation brought a more deter¬ 
mined and bitter opposition to the miners’ organ¬ 
ization, and gave it a foe much more powerful 
than any union of independent operators could 
ever be. And one of the strongest weapons put 
into the hands of this new enemy of the miners' 


THE MINE WORKERS 


33 

organization was furnished by mine-workers 
themselves. 

Public sympathy with the miners’ cause was 
greatly weakened by the wide-spread lawlessness 
which prevailed throughout the region at this 
period. Much of it necessarily accompanied the 
numerous strikes inaugurated by the Working¬ 
man’s Benevolent Association, but to this organi¬ 
zation was also attributed, by the railroads and 
by an undiscriminating public, the burning of 
breakers and the scores of murders committed 
by the “ Mollie Maguires,” a secret, oath-bound 
organization which flourished in the region from 
1866 to 1876.* Although the association had no 

* The “ Mollie Maguires” were principally Irish immi¬ 
grants, who brought the society with them from Ireland, 
where it had been formed as the Ancient Order of Hiber¬ 
nians, under Robert Emmet, for the purpose of freeing 
their native land from British control. None but Catho¬ 
lics were eligible to membership, and, despite the oppo¬ 
sition of the Catholic Church and its priests in the 
anthracite region, the society continued in existence 
nearly ten years with the worst possible elements opposed 
to law and order in control. Its secret meetings, which 
3 



34 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


direct relation with the society, yet some of the 
members of the former belonged to the “ Mollie 
Maguires.” And when the terror which the 
depredations of the latter had given rise to 


planned murder and incendiarism, were conducted with 
solemn religious rites, and its vengeance seemed to be 
directed mainly against mine superintendents and bosses. 
A number of murders of such officials was traced to the 
society, but in every case alibis would be sworn to in 
the trial by other members of the society, and convictions 
were rare. So daring did they become, and so atrocious 
were the crimes committed, that detectives were em¬ 
ployed to ferret out the criminals. One of these was 
John McParlan, an Irishman and a Catholic, who in 1873 
succeeded in becoming a member of the society under the 
name of James McKenna. He played his part so well 
that he continued a member for three years before his 
real purpose was discovered and he was forced to flee. 
He had gained the confidence of the leaders, however, 
and had become secretary of the Shenandoah branch of 
the society. The evidence of the operations of the society 
he was thus able to furnish led to the arrest of seventy 
members. With his mass of undisputed testimony, and 
through some of the prisoners turning State’s evidence, 
twelve members of the society were convicted of murder 
in the first degree, four of murder in the second degree, 
four of being accessory to murder, and six of perjury. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


35 


was relieved by the conviction and hanging of 
the criminals, public indignation was skilfully 
directed in taking vengeance upon the miners’ 
organization. 

By this time the organization itself had become 
greatly weakened through dissensions among the 
members of the different districts. The Schuyl¬ 
kill miners were constantly complaining that they 
could put no faith in the men of the Northern 
field. In fact, the Schuylkill mine-workers re¬ 
fused to abide by the joint agreement of 1871 
unless they could be assured that the mine-em¬ 
ployees in the Wyoming and Lehigh fields would 
observe good faith with them. Otherwise they 
threatened to make their own agreements with 
the operators, regardless of the interests of the 
other mine-workers. It was at most a hetero¬ 
geneous mass of non-self-governing men with 
which the leaders had to deal, the different races 
presenting complicated interests which took the 
ablest of men to harmonize. And when, by the 
election of John Siney to the presidency of the 
Miners’ National Association in October, 1873, 


36 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


the direction of the anthracite miners passed 
into less able hands, it needed no prophet, even 
at that day, to foretell the end of the Working¬ 
man’s Benevolent Association. The success of 
previous strikes, the adoption of the sliding scale, 
the passage of the first mine-inspection law, and 
the securing of other direct advantages for the 
mine-employees, had led the officers—as too 
much sudden success among such men is likely 
to do—into a too arrogant use of their power. 
They embroiled their organization in the tem¬ 
pestuous seas of politics, and the welfare of the 
mine-workers was, in consequence, soon being 
antagonized by both parties playing the interests 
of the miners and operators against one another. 

The end came in 1875. Prices and wages had 
been fairly well maintained through the associa¬ 
tion’s efforts, until the industrial depression, 
which had begun in 1873, could no longer be 
prevented from having its effect upon the an¬ 
thracite markets and industry. In 1875 the 
operators proposed a reduction in wages of 
from ten to twenty per cent. On January 1 


THE MINE WORKERS 


37 


a six-months’ strike was inaugurated by the 
miners of the Lehigh and Schuylkill fields. 
The struggle was a fierce one, as both sides 
felt it to be a final effort. The miners lost— 
the strike terminated in their complete sur¬ 
render upon the terms of the operators. The 
Workingman’s Benevolent Association was 
completely destroyed, never to be heard of again, 
and it was to be many years before the anthra¬ 
cite mine-workers were to recover from their 
loss sufficiently to attempt another such organi¬ 
zation. 

This ten-year period of conflict in the anthra¬ 
cite coal-fields, which has been briefly traced, 
was a struggle towards industrial organization 
on the part of the English-speaking mine- 
workers—the Englishman, Scotchman, Irish¬ 
man, Welshman, and German. We have seen 
how and why they failed. There followed a 
period of twenty-five years or more during 
which the contest between the railroad mining 
companies and the independent operators for the 
control of the anthracite product stands out as 


38 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


the most conspicuous tendency in this great in¬ 
dustry. Organized labor, completely crushed, 
was quiescent. Why the scattered fragments 
were not gathered together is partly to be 
discerned in a study of the effects of that move¬ 
ment of population to the United States from 
Poland, Austria, Russia, Hungary, and Italy, 
which gave to the anthracite industry a type of 
laborer widely different from the English-speak¬ 
ing nationalities. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


39 


CHAPTER III 

THE COMING OF THE SLAV 

One of the most remarkable race migrations 
in history is recorded in the United States im¬ 
migration statistics for the last two decades of 
the nineteenth century. A group of people of 
Northern Europe that up to this time had con¬ 
tributed the bulk of our foreign-born population, 
with an almost startling suddenness yielded their 
place to races which, before 1880, were scarcely 
represented among us. Such a change in the 
character of our immigration must necessarily 
have exerted a tremendous influence upon labor 
conditions in the United States. Nowhere were 
the effects so marked as in the anthracite coal¬ 
fields of Pennsylvania. 

Immigration to this country down to 1890, 
according to the report of the Twelfth Census,* 


* Population, Part I. 



40 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


was practically dominated by the natives of Ger¬ 
many, Ireland, Great Britain, Canada, and New¬ 
foundland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; 
these five classes combined having contributed 
very nearly 13,000,000 out of the total of 15,- 
428,000 immigrants. “ From 1891 to 1900, 
however,” says the report, “ they have contrib 1 
uted out of a total of 3,687,564 immigrants only 
L 539,926, or a little more than two-fifths, as 
against three-fourths for the ten-year period 
ending in 1890, more than four-fifths for that 
ending in 1880, and fully nine-tenths for those 
ending in 1870 and i860, respectively.” The 
decrease in this element of our immigration has 
been from 88.2 per cent, in 1880 to 74.4 per cent, 
in 1900; immigrants from Germany decreasing 
from 29.4 per cent, to 25.8 per cent., from 
Ireland from 27.8 per cent, to 15.6 per cent., 
and from Great Britain from 13.7 per cent, 
to 11.3 per cent. The report also says that 
Germany, which constituted more than one- 
third of all the immigrants for the ten-year 
periods ending in i860 and 1870, and more 


THE MINE WORKERS 


4i 


than one-fourth of all the arrivals during the 
next two periods, has furnished barely one- 
seventh of the immigrants during the past ten 
years; while Ireland, which constituted more 
than two-fifths of all the immigrants from 1821 
to 1850, more than one-third of those from 1851 
to i860, and very nearly one-fifth of those from 
1861 to 1870, has furnished but a little more than 
one-tenth of the total number for the decade 
ending in 1900. In brief, there has been a ma¬ 
terial reduction since 1890 in the proportions of 
immigrants represented by natives of Germany, 
Ireland, and Great Britain, and but a very slight 
increase from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 
In 1870 these constituted over nine-tenths of the 
entire foreign-born population; in 1900 they 
constituted less than three-fourths of all foreign- 
born persons in the United States. 

In the anthracite region miners from these 
countries developed, before 1880, a common 
standard of living and a more or less common 
knowledge of the English language. For pur¬ 
poses of distinction, therefore, they have often 


42 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


been grouped as “ English-speaking” races, and 
under this rough but useful designation they 
will be treated of in this and the following 
chapters. 

In striking contrast to this decreasing tide of 
the Teutonic races washed upon our shores is the 
vast wave which has rushed upon us from South¬ 
ern Europe. From the report of the Twelfth 
Census * it is seen that during the decade end¬ 
ing in 1900 Austria-Hungary (including Bo¬ 
hemia), Russia, with what was formerly Poland, 
and Italy each contributed a larger proportion of 
all the immigrants to the United States than any 
of the countries from which the bulk of our 
immigration formerly came. This is the more 
impressive when it is remembered that prior to 
1880 no considerable amount of immigration 
had been received from Austria-Hungary, Rus¬ 
sia, and Italy. In 1850, according to the census 
of that year, the natives from these countries 
constituted less than one-third of one per cent, of 


* Population, Part I. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


43 


all the foreign-born in the United States; in 1870, 
about two per cent.; in 1880, four per cent.; in 
1890, 8.9 per cent.; while in 1900 they had in¬ 
creased to 18.1 per cent. Thus the proportion 
represented by this class of immigrants has more 
than doubled in the past ten years. While they 
represent about one-sixth of the total number of 
immigrants from 1881 to 1890, they form fully 
one-half of all for the decade ending in 1900. 
If each of the countries is taken separately, it is' 
found that, with the single exception of Bo¬ 
hemia, there has been an increase since 1890 of 
much more than one hundred per cent, in the 
natives of these countries coming to the United 
States. 

In discussions of labor troubles in the anthra¬ 
cite fields the term “ Slav” has come to be applied 
to all these and other nationalities from Southern 
Europe. As an industrial class, the laborers 
from those countries have so many common 
characteristics, and are so notably different from 
the English-speaking mine-workers, that a single 
name for the group has become a necessity. The 


44 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

term has some justification in the large num¬ 
ber of real Slavs in the hard-coal region, such 
as the Slovaks, Croatians, Servians, and 
Slovenes. But the Lithuanians, who con¬ 
stitute a large proportion of the “ foreign” 
element in the three anthracite coal-fields, are 
not Slavs. Their language, which is claimed 
to be the most ancient in Europe, is akin to the 
Sanskrit in grammatical forms, and differs from 
all Slavic languages. These people come from 
Southern Russia, their native home being along 
the River Nieman. The Poles come from the 
district along the Vistula River. Of the Slavs 
proper the Croatians and the Servians speak the 
same dialect. The leading Slav race in the an¬ 
thracite region, in point of numbers, is the 
Slovak. Its members speak the dialect of Bo¬ 
hemia. The Roumanians speak a language 
grafted upon their own directly from the old 
Romans. 

The accompanying language map shows the 
distribution in Continental Europe of the differ¬ 
ent races of which our Slav immigration is 


THE MINE WORKERS 


45 


largely composed. It is a reproduction, with 
some details omitted and with a number of 
additions supplied to answer our purpose, of 



a map from a Bohemian atlas intended to indi¬ 
cate in particular the distribution of the Slav 
races in Austria-Hungary. In the northern part 
of the empire are the Bohemians, Slovaks, Poles, 
and Ruthenians, and in the southern district, 
along the Adriatic Sea, the Slovenes, Servians, 
and Croatians. The map shows how they have 
been separated, wedge-like, by an invasion of the 



























46 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Germans from the West and of the Magyars 
from the East (Asia). 

Let us see now what effect this remarkable 
change in the nationalities of our immigrants 
has had upon the anthracite industry of Penn¬ 
sylvania. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


47 


CHAPTER IV 

THE SLAV IN THE ANTHRACITE REGION 

Dim traces of the entrance into the anthracite 
industry of the Slav races are discerned as far 
back as 1878. Just what year they first made 
their appearance is not definitely known, but it is 
certain that they were at work about the collieries 
shortly after the destruction of the Working¬ 
man’s Benevolent Association in 1875. By 1880, 
in the Southern or Schuylkill field,* there were 
1386 persons “born in Poland,” according to 
the census of that year. In 1890 these are re¬ 
ported to have increased 5337. In that year, in 
the Schuylkill field, those born in Austria (in¬ 
cluding Bohemia) numbered 3534; in Russia, 
2200; in Hungary, 3164; and in Italy, 1254. 
All those races designated as Slavs totalled 
16,875 ' m Schuylkill field at the taking of 

* Carbon, Dauphin, Northumberland, and Schuylkill 
counties. 



48 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

the census in 1890. Ten years later—by 1900 
—they had nearly doubled , their total number 
being 32,208. Those born in Poland had in¬ 
creased 5627; in Austria, 3672; in Russia, 
3619; in Hungary, 1283, and those from Italy, 
1132. 

This notable increase of the Slav nation¬ 
alities in the Schuylkill field is conveniently 
shown in the following table: 

Slav Races, Schuylkill Field, 1880-1900. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born ... 

••• 40,953 

54,266 

59,422 

Poland . 

... 1,386 

6,723 

12,350 

Austria . 


3,534 

7,206 

Russia . 


2,200 

5,8i9 

Hungary . 


3,164 

4,447 

Italy . 


1,254 

2,386 


Total . 1,386 16,875 32,208 

In the Northern or Wyoming field, more defi¬ 
nitely in Lackawanna County, by 1880 the Slav 
had barely begun to set foot, there being but a 
meagre eighty representatives of those races re¬ 
ported in that district by the census of that year. 














THE MINE WORKERS 


49 


By 1890, however, these eighty had increased 
to 6181, and by 1900 to 18,818. This increase 
is given in detail as follows: 


Slav Races, Lackawanna County, 1880-1900. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born ..., 

.... 26,917 

46,399 

55,727 

Poland. 

80 

781 

7,739 

Austria. 


1,720 

3,742 

Russia . 


853 

846 

Hungary . 


1,618 

2,511 

Italy . 


1,209 

3,98o 

Total . 

80 

6,181 

18,818 


The preceding table accounts for only Lacka¬ 
wanna County. The Northern or Wyoming 
field includes also a portion of Luzerne County, 
and that particular portion of the population of 
the latter which inhabits the northern coal-dis¬ 
trict should properly be considered in tracing the 
increase in the number of Slav^2ccording to 
fields. This is not possible, however, because the 
Schuylkill field (including the Lehigh field) also 
extends into Luzerne County; and as statistics 















50 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


showing the population of this county inhabiting 
the separate fields it includes are not available, 
any attempt to measure the movement in this 
section of the region according to fields cannot 
be absolutely accurate. 

Taking the population of the whole of Luzerne 
County by itself, however, we find the Slav races 
there to have increased from 449 in 1880, to 19,- 
330 in 1890, and to nearly double the latter num¬ 
ber—36,265—in 1900; this increase, I feel sure, 
being largely in that section of the county in¬ 
cluding a part of the Southern field. The in¬ 
crease in the number of Slavs in Luzerne County 
is shown in detail as follows: 

Slav Races, Luzerne County, 1880-1900. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born ... 

... 35,716 

64,103 

72,962 

Poland. 

449 

7,408 

17,031 

Austria. 


3,792 

6,156 

Russia . 


1,365 

3,146 

Hungary . 


5,104 

6,512 

Italy . 

. 

1,661 

3,420 


Total 


449 


19,330 


36,265 















THE MINE WORKERS 


5i 


Taking the entire anthracite region,—Carbon, 
Columbia, Dauphin, Lackawanna, Luzerne, 
Northumberland, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna 
counties,—the increase in the Slav races from 
1880 to 1900 is found to be as follows: 

Slav Races, Entire Anthracite Region. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born ... 

.... 108,827 

170,582 

193,692 

Poland. 

• • • • 1,925 

15,142 

37,677 

Austria. 


9,226 

17,876 

Russia . 


4,474 

10,283 

Hungary . 


9 , 93 i 

13,534 

Italy . 


4,234 

9,958 

Total. 

.... 1,925 

43,007 

89,328 


Thus is indicated the composition of that 
great stream of Slav labor which for the past 
twenty years has been flowing into that sec¬ 
tion of Pennsylvania. Since 1880 this particu¬ 
lar industrial group has been increased by over 
87,000, an average increase of at least twelve 
each day during this entire period. Practically 
all of them have gone there to work in and about 
the coal-mines. 
















52 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


CHAPTER V 

EFFECT UPON THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING RACES 

Down to about 1880 the mining of hard coal 
was confined almost exclusively to native Ameri¬ 
cans, and to Canadian, English, Welsh, Irish, 
Scotch, and German immigrants. In 1880, 
according to the census of that year, the total 
foreign-born population in the anthracite re¬ 
gion was 108,827, of which 102,421 were of 
the English-speaking races. Those from Ire¬ 
land numbered 45,330; from England and 
Wales, 33,214; from Germany, 20,686; and 
from Scotland, 3191. 

Taking the Schuylkill field, the total foreign- 
born population (the natives are not here con¬ 
sidered, for which an explanation will be given 
later) in 1880 was 40,953. Of these, 37,845 
were of what I have designated as English- 
speaking races. Those from Ireland numbered 
15,932; from England and Wales, 10,983; from 
Germany, 10,072, and from Scotland, 858. Ten 


THE MINE WORKERS 


53 


years later the total foreign-born population of 
these counties had increased 13,413,—that is, to 
54,266. Despite this, the total of the English- 
speaking races had decreased 1669. The Irish 
showed a decrease of 3846; while the English 
and Welsh increased 575, the Germans 1573, 
and the Scotch 29. By 1900 the total foreign- 
born reached 59,422, while the English-speaking 
races showed a decrease of 10,060,—that is, to 
26,116. The Irish decreased 4480; the English 
and Welsh, 3055; the Germans, 2312; and the 
Scotch, 213. 

These figures are conveniently summarized in 
the following table: 


English-Speaking Races, Schuylkill Field, 1880-1900. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born . 

. 40,953 

54,266 

59,422 

Ireland . 

. 15,932 

12,086 

7,606 

England ) 

and V. 


6,734 

4,970 

Wales ) 


4,824 

3,533 

Germany . 


11,645 

9,333 

Scotland . 

. 858 

887 

674 


Total English-speaking. 37,845 36,176 26,116 













54 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


The most marked decrease, it will be observed 
from the accompanying table, is in the number 
of those born in Ireland. This is explained 
partly by the determined efforts of the operators, 
about 1875, following the reign of terror inau¬ 
gurated by the “ Mollie Maguires,” to force the 
Irish in particular out of the coal-mining in¬ 
dustry, as the members of that race were credited 
for the greater part with the depredations, riots, 
and murders of the decade from 1865 to 1875. 
The operators had found them to be an easily- 
excited race, quick to resent oppression, whether 
real or imaginary, and the most troublesome to 
the industry of all the nationalities at that time 
engaged in the mining of hard coal. The Irish 
have been the leaders, or agitators, of every 
labor organization in the anthracite industry 
ever since they entered the region. Even to¬ 
day they are in control, and dominate the 
miners’ union in the three fields. 

By a comparison of this table with that pre¬ 
sented on page 48, it will be seen that the Eng¬ 
lish-speaking races formed nearly 93 per cent. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


55 


and the Slav nationalities a little over 3 per cent, 
of the total foreign-born in the Schuylkill field in 
1880. Ten years later the English-speaking 
races formed 67 per cent., and the Slavs over 31 
per cent. By 1900 the Slavs were dominant in 
the Schuylkill field, forming over 54 per cent., 
while the English-speaking races constituted but 
44 per cent. 

Turning to the Northern or Wyoming field— 
to Lackawanna County—we find the same gen¬ 
eral tendency in the movement of the foreign- 
born population, although its details are less 
strongly marked. This movement is indicated 
in the census returns as follows: 

English-Speaking Races, Entire Anthracite Region, 
1880-1900. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foceign-born ... 


46,399 

55,727 

Ireland . 

... 12,497 

14,524 

12,270 

England } 

and V. 

... 8,625 

7,547 

8,010 

Wales ) 


8,511 

7,708 

Germany . 


7,242 

6,124 

Scotland . 

... 785 

1,270 

1,225 


Total English-speaking. 26,137 39,°94 35,337 













56 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Comparing this table with that on page 49, 
showing the movement among the Slav races in 
Lackawanna County, it is learned that in 1880 
the English-speaking nationalities made up over 
97 per cent, of the total foreign-born in that 
county and the Slavs but .3 per cent. By the 
following decade the former had decreased to a 
little over 84 per cent., while the latter increased 
to over 13 per cent. By 1900 the English-speak¬ 
ing races numbered less than 64 per cent, and the 
Slavs over 33 per cent. 

As has already been noted, the Wyoming field 
also includes a portion of Luzerne County, but 
the change in the composition of the foreign-born 
English-speaking element in the latter cannot 
be indicated clearly according to fields, as Lu¬ 
zerne County also takes in a part of the Schuyl¬ 
kill field (the Middle or Lehigh field), and there 
are no statistics available which will permit the 
movement in Luzerne County to be traced ac¬ 
cording to the fields it includes. The best that 
can be done is to consider the population of Lu¬ 
zerne County by itself. The English-speaking 


THE MINE WORKERS 


57 


nationalities in this county increased, and then 
decreased, a movement somewhat similar to that 
which we have seen took place in Lackawanna 
County. If it were possible to separate the pop¬ 
ulation of Luzerne County in its relation to each 
field, I feel sure it could be shown that the move¬ 
ment of the English-speaking races was from the 
Southern to the Northern field, and then from 
the anthracite industry. 

The change in the composition of the foreign- 
born English-speaking nationalities in Luzerne 
County is shown in detail as follows: 


English-Speaking Races, Luzerne County, 1880-1900. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born ... 

... 35,7i6 

64,103 

72,962 

Ireland . 

• •• 13,598 

13,012 

9,755 

England ) 

and v. 

... 12,510 

9,346 

7,497 

Wales ) 


10,392 

8,578 

Germany . 

... 5,806 

8,925 

8,137 

Scotland . 

... 1,415 

1,758 

1,411 

Total English-speaking. 33,329 

43,433 

35,378 


A comparison of this table with that on page 
50 shows the Slav races in the same county to 













58 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


have increased from less than 2 per cent, of the 
total foreign-born in 1880 to over 30 per cent, 
in 1890, and to nearly one-half, or 50 per cent., 
in 1900. The English-speaking races in Lu¬ 
zerne County decreased from nearly 94 per cent, 
in 1880 to less than 68 per cent, in 1890 and to 
less than 49 per cent, in 1900. 

For the entire anthracite region we find the 
movement among the foreign-born English- 
speaking races to be indicated by the census re¬ 
turns as follows: 


English-Speaking Races, Entire Anthracite Region. 


Country of Birth. 

1880. 

1890. 

1900. 

Total foreign-born .., 


170,582 

193,692 

Ireland . 

•••• 45,330 

42,374 

31,349 

England ) 

and v . 

.... 33,214 

24,575 

21,225 

Wales ) 


24,140 

20,220 

Germany . 

.... 20,686 

28,534 

24,086 

Scotland . 

•... 3 ,i 9 i 

4,013 

3,389 

Total English-speaking. 102,421 

123,636 

100,269 

Total Slav . 

.... 1,925 

43,007 

89,328 


In 1880 the English-speaking races composed 
nearly 94 per cent, of the total foreign-born in 

















THE MINE WORKERS 


59 


the eight hard-coal producing counties; in 1890 
they had decreased to less than 73 per cent., 
and by 1900 to less than 52 per cent. The 
Slav races, as shown in detail on page 51, 
formed less than 2 per cent, of the total for¬ 
eign-born in the anthracite region in 1880, 
over 25 per cent, in 1890, and over 46 per 
cent, in 1900. 

In the tables presented are excluded the com¬ 
paratively small number of foreign-born from 
Canada, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Den¬ 
mark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Asia, Fin¬ 
land, Roumania, Turkey, Australia, China, 
South America, other countries not specified in 
the census reports, and those born at sea, who 
were in the anthracite region at the taking of the 
census. Those born in Bohemia are included 
among those reported as born in Austria. The 
native population of the counties has also been 
purposely omitted from the tables, for the rea¬ 
son that, while a small percentage of it must 
be considered in a discussion of the nationalities 
engaged in the anthracite industry, a large pro- 


6o 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


portion of it is made up of women and children, 
including not only the children of native Ameri¬ 
cans, but also those of the immigrant ele¬ 
ment. The foreign-born population, on the other 
hand, is composed largely of young adults, and 
contains but a comparatively small proportion of 
women and children. 

While the census reports thus enable us to 
separate and classify the different nationalities in 
the anthracite-producing counties, there is no 
such convenient means for ascertaining accur¬ 
ately the relative proportion of each race en¬ 
gaged directly in the production of hard coal. 
In the report of the Pennsylvania Bureau of 
Mines for 1901 it is stated that a total of 147,- 
651 men and boys are employed in and about the 
mines. During 1900 the State Mine Inspectors 
in the eight anthracite districts into which the 
entire region was then divided made efforts to 
ascertain the exact number of each nationality 
thus employed, but with only partially successful 
results. Out of a total of over 375 collieries, 
232 employed 96,077 mine-workers, of whom 


THE MINE WORKERS 


61 


55>4 2 6 were of the English-speaking races 
(Americans, Germans, Englishmen, Irishmen, 
Scotchmen, Welshmen, etc.), and 40,651 of 
the non-English-speaking or Continental races 
(Hungarians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, Ital¬ 
ians, etc.). The 96,077 reported equalled about 
66.8 per cent, of the total number employed. 

Despite this absence of definite statistical in¬ 
formation covering all mines in the entire 
region, there is sufficient evidence to show that 
as the Slav races increased in the hard-coal in¬ 
dustry the English-speaking races so employed 
have steadily decreased. We have proof of this 
in statistics of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal 
& Iron Company, which employs by far the 
largest number of mine-workers in the Schuyl¬ 
kill field. These statistics show that in 1890 
the number of the Slav nationalities at work 
in and about its mines was 5839, or 23.2 . per 
cent., and the foreign-born English-speaking 
races, 14,176, or 57.3 per cent., out of a total of 
24,734. By 1901 the number of the English- 
speaking races had decreased 13,024, or to 


62 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


1152, while that of the Slavs increased 3682, or 
to 9521, out of a total of 26,300. That is, from 
1890 to October, 1901, the English-speaking 
mine-workers, other than natives, in the em¬ 
ploy of this one company, decreased at the rate 
of 1085 a year, while the Slavs increased at the 
rate of 307 for each of the twelve years. 

These figures deal only with the foreign-born 
mine-workers of the Reading,—that is, with 
those groups designated as Slav and English- 
speaking. But at the taking of the census of 
its employees by this company in October, 1901, 
there were also employed 15,627 native Ameri¬ 
cans. These numbered 4719 in 1890. This 
large increase is accounted for in the fact that, 
though born in the United States and entitled 
to be classified as Americans, they are practically 
all of Slavish descent, and industrially they be¬ 
long more largely to the Slav rather than to 
the English-speaking group of mine-workers, 
despite the fact, too, that nearly all of them 
can speak the English language. The accom¬ 
panying table shows at a glance the change in 


THE MINE WORKERS 63 

the nationalities of mine-employees of the Read¬ 
ing from 1890 to 1901. 


Nationalities, Reading 

Mine-Employees, 

1890-1901. 

Foreign-Born 

English-Speaking. 


Nationality. 

1890. 

1901. 

Irish . 


564 

English . 


61 

Welsh . 


197 

German . 


300 

Scotch . 


30 

Total . 


1,152 

Foreign- 

-Born Slav. 


Polish . 


7 , 3 H 

Hungarian . 


i ,979 

Italian . 

. 86 

231 

Total . 

. 5,839 

9,521 

Born in America. 

. 4 , 7 i 9 

15,627 

Total employees. 

. 24,734 

26,300 


This tendency of the Slavs to enter and of 
the English-speaking races to leave the hard- 
coal mines is more clearly shown and more 
strongly emphasized through personal observa¬ 
tions within the region. It is more marked in 




















64 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


the industry itself than would seem to be indi¬ 
cated by our study of the movement of popula¬ 
tion within the counties, because many of the 
English-speaking mine-workers, who have been 
and are still leaving the mines, remain within 
the counties, engaging in other occupations. This 
migration from the industry was first vividly 
presented by a personal study of conditions in 
different mining towns, and it was the impression 
thus gained that has led to a search for statistical 
proof. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


65 


CHAPTER VI 

A CONFLICT OF STANDARDS OF LIVING 

We have had presented the statistical results 
of a marked movement of population in the an¬ 
thracite coal-region. They show that the coming 
in of the Slav has been accompanied by the 
migration from the fields of the English-speak¬ 
ing races. Back of this is a dark and gloomy 
picture of a struggle between these two distinctly 
marked groups for industrial supremacy in hard- 
coal mining. Primarily and essentially this 
struggle was a conflict between two widely dif¬ 
ferent standards of living. 

The Irish, English, Welsh, Scotch, and Ger¬ 
man mine-workers, who entered the hard-coal 
region in large numbers before and for some 
time after the Civil War, had grown accustomed 
to a social life of some dignity and comfort by 
the time of the Slav’s entrance into the industry. 
This English-speaking mine-worker wanted a 
5 


66 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


home, wife, and children. A picture of that 
home represented, usually, a neat two-story frame 
house, with a porch and yard attached. He 
wanted a carpet on the best room, pictures on 
the wall, and the house to be otherwise attractive. 
In that home he wanted none but his own im¬ 
mediate family, or very near relatives. His wife 
he liked to see comfortably and fairly well 
dressed. For his children he had ambitions 
which required their attendance at the little red 
school-house on the hill. He was a type of man 
whose wants were always just beyond his 
wages, with the tendency for these wants to in¬ 
crease. 

It cannot be said that all the English-speaking 
mine-workers had exactly the same standard, 
but the tendency with all of them was towards 
one nearly uniform standard, and that a com¬ 
paratively high one. This standard cannot be 
measured in money, because of the varying 
elements entering into its composition among 
different mine-workers, even of the same nation¬ 
ality. It is true that lower standards of living 


THE MINE WORKERS 67 

were continually coming into the region; but 
these were brought in, for the most part, by men 
of the same English-speaking races, the later 
arrivals being quickly absorbed and soon made 
to conform to the higher standard through fam¬ 
ily ties, intermarriage, and imitation. 

But in marked contrast to all this was the 
mode of life of the Slav mine-worker. Escap¬ 
ing, as he was, from an agricultural environ¬ 
ment which had barely supplied food, clothing, 
and shelter, the Slav came single-handed, alone. 
Wife and children he had none, nor wished for 
them. Placed in the anthracite region by the 
force of circumstances, without either the time 
or the means or the knowledge, even if he had 
the mental quality, to look elsewhere for work, 
the Slav could only supply his pressing physical 
demands by selling his labor. Under such con¬ 
ditions he was satisfied to live in almost any 
kind of a place, to wear almost anything that 
would clothe his nakedness, and to eat any kind 
of food that would keep body and soul together. 

The Slav was content to live in a one-room 


68 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


hut, built by his own hands on a hill-side near the 
mine, of driftwood gathered at spare moments 
from along the highway, and roofed with tin 
from discarded powder-cans; or he crowded into 
the poorer and cheaper living sections of the 
large mining towns. He was not particular with 
whom or with how many he lived, except that 
he wanted them to be of his own nationality. 

To-day, in a certain mining town, there are 
fourteen Slavs, all unmarried and with only 
themselves to support, who rent one large, for¬ 
merly abandoned, store-room. This is taken care 
of by a housekeeper, who also prepares the meals 
for the men. Each man has his own tin plate, 
tin knife, fork, and cup; he has his own ham 
and bread and a place in which to keep them. 
Some things they buy in common, the distribu¬ 
tion being made by the housekeeper. For beds 
the men sleep on bunks arranged along the walls 
and resembling shelves in a grocery store. Each 
has his own blanket; each carries it out-of-doors 
to air when he gets up in the morning and back 
again when he returns from his work at night. 


THE MINE WORKERS 69 

The monthly cost of living to each of these men is 
not over four dollars. They spend but little on 
clothes the year round, contenting themselves 
with the cheapest kind of material and not in¬ 
frequently wearing cast-off garments purchased 
of some second-hand dealer. For fuel they burn 
coal from the culm-banks or wood from along 
the highway, which costs them nothing but their 
labor in gathering it. In many cases the un¬ 
married Slav mine-worker “boards” at a cost 
of from five dollars to twelve dollars a month. 

With a wage of thirty dollars a month 
this type of laborer can save nearly twenty dol¬ 
lars. A Slav with a family could not save so 
much; but even with a wife and children the 
married Slav’s cost of living is less than that of 
the English-speaking mine-worker. Dr. Peter 
Roberts indicates this plainly in the following 
interesting table from “ The Anthracite Coal 
Industry,” showing the differences in the ac¬ 
counts of Slav and Anglo-Saxon patrons at one 
of the company stores in the region for July, 
1900: 


70 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Slav 

Anglo-Saxon 

Patrons. 

Patrons. 

$8.01 

$6345 

770 

41.97 

7-32 

43-33 

4-03 

35-79 

770 

72.95 

7.50 

18.38 

I0.Q7 

33.42 

7.20 

21.98 

3-47 

20.65 

2.41 

48.08 


Besides all this advantage, the family income 
of the Slav is also increased in ways the English- 
speaking miner would not think of. The foreign 
woman does manual work, such as picking coal 
from the culm-banks, carrying driftwood from 
the forest nearby, and in a score of other ways 
lessens the cost of living to the Slav family. In 
one or two cases these women have been known 
to work in the mines as laborers. The foreign 
woman goes about barefooted even on the pub¬ 
lic streets. Usually her garments are of the 
poorest materials. It was not the married Slav 
with a family, however, who became the typical 
competitor of the English-speaking mine-worker, 


THE MINE WORKERS 


7 1 


but the Slav without a family. After the Slav 
has been in the region eight or ten years, and has 
brought a wife from the Old Country, the forces 
about him have gradually raised him to a higher 
standard of living, and he then passes over into 
the industrial group of the English-speaking 
races. 

It was these marked social differences which 
made the twenty-years’ struggle for industrial 
race supremacy inevitable. It must now be 
shown how these differences worked to the dis¬ 
advantage of the English-speaking mine-em¬ 
ployee. 

Of the total number of men and boys employed 
in the mining of hard coal and in its preparation 
for market about one-third work outside the 
mines, or above ground, and two-thirds inside, or 
underground. The former comprise superin¬ 
tendents, bookkeepers and clerks, foremen, black¬ 
smiths, carpenters, engineers, firemen, machin¬ 
ists, slate-pickers, slope and shaft headmen, shaft 
helpers, plane headmen, car-dumpers (breaker), 
slate-shovelers and wheelers, men in chutes 


72 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


above screen, men cutting and loading timber, 
oilers (machinery), loaders of big cars, ash- 
wheelers, blacksmiths’ helpers, mule-drivers, 
watchmen, etc. The underground workers in¬ 
clude foremen, fire-bosses, engineers, door- and 
fan-boys and helpers, drivers and runners, 
miners, laborers, track-layers and helpers, 
shaft-repair men, timbermen and helpers, 
shaft and slope footmen and helpers, plane- 
or wheel-runners, plane footmen, masons, road- 
cleaners, car-couplers, pumpmen, stablemen and 
helpers, pipemen, water-bailers, men unloading 
rock, etc. 

All these employees form two general classes 
—the skilled and the unskilled. The former in¬ 
clude the groups designated as blacksmiths, car¬ 
penters, engineers, firemen, miners, inside and 
outside foremen, and fire-bosses. The unskilled 
groups are the slate-pickers, door-boys and help¬ 
ers, drivers and runners, laborers, and the great 
majority of the other inside and outside em¬ 
ployees. Among the individuals composing any 
particular group in either class there are vary- 


THE MINE WORKERS 


73 

ing degrees of skill—some are less unskilled or 
more skilled than others. The most unskilled in 
any particular group in time become the least un¬ 
skilled in that group; the least unskilled pass 
into some skilled group. Thus there is a con¬ 
stant interchange of individuals from group to 
group and from class to class, the general ten¬ 
dency being a progression from the most un¬ 
skilled to the most skilled. Miners are always 
passing out of the latter group to become fire¬ 
bosses, foremen, superintendents, or into other 
higher occupations, both inside and outside the 
industry; others are killed, many end their days 
in the county poorhouse, while not a few are 
forced back into the breaker or into other un¬ 
skilled groups. The once skilled miner who 
through accidents or disease or old age becomes 
incapacitated for longer filling that position, not 
infrequently returns to the unskilled class as a 
breaker “ boy.” 

To fill the places in the mines vacated in these 
and other ways the least unskilled of the laborers 
become miners, forming the least skilled of the 


74 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


latter group. While the laborers are properly 
classed as unskilled, there is a point where they 
almost insensibly merge into the skilled class. 
The laborer of two or more years’ experience in 
the mine is always on the verge of passing into 
the ranks of the skilled miner. The laborer en¬ 
tering the mine for the first time is usually the 
most unskilled of all in that unskilled group, 
while the laborer ready to become a miner is the 
least unskilled in that group and becomes the 
least skilled among the miners when he passes 
over the dividing line. It is the least unskilled 
laborer who usually competes with the least 
skilled miner for a place in the latter group. 

While there is a difference of skill in the labor 
of the individuals composing any particular 
group, capital, as a rule, does not enter into a 
detailed and minute measurement of this skill. 
Capital roughly classifies it in the distinction it 
makes between the different groups. It recog¬ 
nizes the broad difference between skilled and 
unskilled labor in paying higher prices for the 
former. It also separates the different kinds of 


THE MINE WORKERS 


75 


skilled labor—it pays one price for blacksmith 
labor, another for engineer labor, and still an¬ 
other price for the labor of the miner. The same 
is true of the unskilled labor—capital pays one 
price for door-boy labor, another price for driver 
labor, and still another price for the labor of the 
laborer. As a rule, at any one colliery, individuals 
in different groups receive different wages; indi¬ 
viduals in the same group receive the same wage. 
This latter is not true of all miners, although it 
is true of any particular sub-group in that occu¬ 
pation. Some are company miners and some are 
contract miners. Some of the latter work by the 
car, some by the ton, and some by the yard. For 
any particular sub-group the basis for deter¬ 
mining the price of labor is the same. The dif¬ 
ference in the wages actually received by indi¬ 
vidual miners, even in any sub-group, is due 
partly to the difference in skill and partly to the 
effect varying natural conditions have upon their 
expenditure of energy. 

The most important of all groups, skilled as 
well as unskilled,—the one receiving the highest 


76 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


price for its labor,—which is open to the largest 
number of men, is that of miner. The higher 
price paid in it for labor has the effect of draw¬ 
ing workers from nearly all the unskilled groups 
towards that position.* To reach the position of 
miner it is necessary for a worker to serve a 
short time as a laborer in the mines. This has 
the effect of emphasizing temporarily the impor¬ 
tance of the laborers’ position—of making it a 
training station for unskilled workmen on their 
way to become skilled miners. 

It was this position of laborer that the Slav 
first attacked f shortly after his entrance into 
the industry. Being an unskilled workman, he 
was prevented from at once becoming a miner, 
or from entering any of the other skilled groups. 
With his advent a stream of unskilled labor, dis¬ 
tinct from that heretofore drawn from among 
the English-speaking races, began to pour into 


* Some few of the unskilled workers in time become 
blacksmiths, carpenters, firemen, engineers, etc. 

f The Italian, as a rule, went into the unskilled occu¬ 
pations above ground. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


77 


the mines. The Slav was willing to work for 
longer hours than the English-speaking laborer, 
to perform heavier work, to ply his pick in more 
dangerous places, and stolidly to put up with in¬ 
conveniences that his English-speaking com¬ 
petitor would not brook. But, more than all, he 
had a lower standard of living; he could pro¬ 
duce his labor at a less cost and sell it at a lower 
rate. He was a cheap man; and it was to the 
interest of the mining companies—the capitalists 
employed in operating the mines—to secure and 
give employment to cheap men. 

That capital is not a philanthropic or humani¬ 
tarian agency is an economic commonplace. Its 
chief concern is its own reproduction. In the 
anthracite industry this takes the form of pro¬ 
ducing coal at the lowest, and selling it at the 
highest possible price; and as labor is one of the 
largest elements in this cost of production, it is 
the cheapest labor, other things being equal, that 
anthracite capital will buy. The particular 
work the industry demands in the laborer’s 
position needs very little more than physical 


78 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


strength; the task requires quantity rather than 
quality of labor. This strength the Slav can 
supply as readily as his English-speaking com¬ 
petitor, and, as has been shown, he is willing to 
use it to the greater advantage of his employer. 

It was not only by the operators and railroad 
mining companies that the Slav was at first wel¬ 
comed. Under the contract system in vogue in 
many collieries, the skilled miner was also able 
to draw advantages from this cheaper laborer. 
This self-interest of the English-speaking miner 
removed the only obstacle then strong enough 
to have prevented the Slav’s entrance into the 
industry, and the latter rapidly spread through¬ 
out the region, especially in the Southern field. 
The English-speaking laborer was forced either 
to work more cheaply or to withdraw from the 
competition; and in a market usually over-sup¬ 
plied with mine-labor, owing, among other 
things, to the lack of regular employment the 
year round, there could be but one result. In 
a short while the English-speaking laborer was 
being forced out of that position. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


79 


The English-speaking miner before long be¬ 
gan, though too late, to see his mistake. For, in 
course of time, the Slav became not a mere pair 
of hands but a skilled worker,—to use the terms 
common in the mines, not a laborer, but a miner. 
As he had been a cheaper laborer, so was he a 
cheaper miner. 

Race antagonism, differences of habit, of 
tongue, of religion, had all tended to ostracize 
the Slav socially—to set him apart. Even down 
to the entrance of the United Mine Workers in 
1898 he and the English-speaking workers had 
mingled but slightly. Marriages between these 
two races were practically unknown. As a re¬ 
sult the Slav had assimilated very few, if any, of 
those ideals which the English-speaking worker 
had impressed upon the new-comer of his own 
race. The Slav still had his fewer wants, his 
lower cost of living, and his lower price for his 
labor. Moreover, he brought to his new work as 
a skilled miner that characteristic indifference to 
difficult conditions which had made him a use¬ 
ful laborer. He would work in poorer seams 


8o 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


than the English-speaking miner, and in more 
dangerous places; and so, as he had driven out 
the laborer of the older industrial group, he now 
began as surely to drive out the English-speak¬ 
ing miner. 

Yet the pinch of the new conditions for the 
English-speaking miner lay not so much in a 
reduction of the wage rate paid him—for that 
remained practically unchanged from 1880 to 
1900—as in those elements which determined 
his net earnings. The tendency was for these to 
decrease. The miner’s tools grew greater in num¬ 
ber, and their cost rose; the poorer seams, which 
must now be worked, yielded less coal for a given 
amount of powder and energy; certain allow¬ 
ances for what was once called extra work were 
withdrawn; insurance became at once more 
necessary and more expensive as the ignorant, 
daring Slav made mine-working more hazard¬ 
ous; the number of pounds required for a ton 
and the size of the mine-car gradually increased; 
the dockage system, under which the miner was 
charged for impurities in the coal he sent out 


THE MINE WORKERS 


81 


of the mine, also worked more and more to his 
disadvantage. 

These and other difficulties should have been 
offset by increased wages or other compensating 
advantages, if the English-speaking miner was 
to maintain his standard of living. But the fact 
was that down to the strike of 1900 he found 
the cost of applying his labor to produce coal 
rapidly increasing, while, on the other side, his 
cheap Slav competitor kept his wage from 
rising. 

It cannot, of course, be said that all English- 
speaking miners throughout the anthracite re¬ 
gion felt the pinch to an equal degree; yet it was 
in general true that the real net wages of those 
of the older industrial group who remained 
miners were constantly being lessened. Com¬ 
petition among the individuals in the same group 
and between the different groups in the industry 
was greatly intensified. Not only did many vol¬ 
untarily leave the industry; not only were work¬ 
ers being forced out of the mines, but many were 
compelled to lower their standard of living; 


82 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


others were prevented from raising their stand¬ 
ard, while to many the struggle to exist became 
a most severe battle for the necessaries of 
life. 

The pressure on some mine-workers was so 
great as to force their boys of tender years into 
the breaker and their girl children into the silk- 
mill, in order that their pittance might add to 
the family income. This competition affected the 
lives of hundreds of thousands of people; it even 
determined the number of births in a community, 
as well as influenced powerfully the physical and 
mental qualities of those born into the world 
under such stress of conditions. Prior to the 
entrance of the United Mine Workers this com¬ 
petition of the Slav was the one great dominant 
force at work in the anthracite region of Penn¬ 
sylvania, threatening and retarding communal 
advancement and attacking those institutions 
which we, as Americans, justly prize so highly, 
sending influences for evil deep down into the 
foundations of the social structure. Like all 
great forces, it had its beginning in small things 


THE MINE WORKERS 


8.3 


—in the desire of the managers of capital to 
secure a lower cost of production; in the ability 
of one group of men to live on less than another 
group; and, like all great forces, its effects have 
been so far-reaching as to be untraceable in all 
their manifestations. 


84 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


CHAPTER VII 

SLAV COMPETITION AND THE MINERS’ STRIKES 

The brunt of this struggle against the Slav 
competition was borne largely by the English- 
speaking mine-worker in the Southern field, 
because it was in that district the Slav first en¬ 
tered the mines in large numbers. This English- 
speaking miner felt all the bitterness of defeat 
in this contest for industrial supremacy. In self¬ 
protection he tried the strike in 1887-88, and 
found it futile, largely because the miners of his 
industrial group in the Northern field, who had 
not yet felt the pressure of the Slav, refused their 
co-operation. Finally, the English-speaking 
worker in the Schuylkill field did what a grocer 
or a baker would do if unable to meet competi¬ 
tion—he either went out of business or removed 
to a more promising district. Many of the South¬ 
ern miners were thus compelled (some say they 
did it voluntarily) to take their labor out of the 


THE MINE WORKERS 85 

anthracite market altogether, and these in not a 
few cases engaged in other occupations in the 
hard-coal producing counties. 

But in many more cases—so many as to fur¬ 
nish a picture of wholesale migration hardly less 
striking than that of the Slav himself—the 
Schuylkill miner took his labor to another an¬ 
thracite market. He moved North. And indeed 
it may be questioned whether the Southern field 
would have been yielded to the Slav so suddenly 
and completely if the English-speaking miner 
there had not had open to him another and, 
from many points of view, a better section to 
which he might at any time withdraw and con¬ 
tinue to mine coal. 

In this Northern field the English-speak¬ 
ing mine-worker was less mobile than his 
brother in the lower counties. He was a man 
attached to the soil by many ties; its fertility 
enabled him to carry on farming and gardening 
when not engaged in mining. Unlike the South¬ 
ern field, which was bleak, dry, barren, and 
almost wholly without Nature's attractions, the 


86 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


beautiful and fertile Wyoming Valley, called by 
some the “ Switzerland of America,” was boun¬ 
tifully blessed with those gifts of nature which 
add to the enjoyment of living. So great are its 
natural attractions that many costly summer 
houses have been erected in certain parts of it by 
wealthy coal-operators and capitalists from the 
Eastern cities. On the whole, life to the mine- 
worker in this section of the anthracite region 
had many attractions not easily to be abandoned. 
Besides, there were no other hard-coal fields to 
which he could migrate. 

Within this stronghold of the English-speak¬ 
ing group the Slav, up to 1880, had hardly set 
foot. In that year in all the Northern region, 
more definitely in Lackawanna County, there 
were but a meagre eighty representatives of the 
Slav races. But as the Schuylkill miner retreated, 
the Slav followed him closely. By 1890 these 
eighty had increased to 6181, and by 1900 to 
18,818. It began to look like the same story over 
again—the old story so familiar in the Schuyl¬ 
kill field. By 1900 the English-speaking races 


THE MINE WORKERS 87 

were beginning to migrate from the Wyoming 
field also. 

But, as it turned out, the Slav invasion of the 
Northern field presented another and a very dif¬ 
ferent story from that of his easy triumph in the 
lower counties. In the Northern field the Eng¬ 
lish-speaking miner had a home he would not 
willingly leave; and when the competition of the 
Slav threatening that home became too strong, 
the English-speaking mine-worker resorted to 
various methods of defense. Race prejudice, 
manifested in innumerable ways, was directed to 
keeping the Slav out of the mines. In 1889 and 
1897 laws with this object in view were secured 
from the Pennsylvania Legislature, that of 1897 
requiring one to have been a laborer in the mines 
of the Commonwealth for at least two years 
before he could become a miner, and making it 
necessary that one should pass an examination 
before a Miners’ Examining Board. To do this 
the Slav had to possess a knowledge of the 
English language, which was not easy for him 
to acquire. Over these examining boards the 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


English-speaking miner secured control, making 
their requirements operate to his advantage and 
to the disadvantage of the Slav. In a score of 
other ways he endeavored to ward off the com¬ 
petition of the Continental races, his resistance 
to the progress of the latter growing more and 
more pronounced as their numbers increased. 

Just at this most critical period for the Eng¬ 
lish-speaking mine-worker a new and hitherto 
little recognized force—a force destined to do 
what all others had failed to accomplish in check¬ 
ing and controlling the competition of the Slav 
—began to operate in the anthracite region. It 
was the United Mine Workers of America. 
Fresh from victory in the central competitive 
soft-coal fields in 1897, after a long strike, this 
organization of bituminous coal-miners at once 
took deep root in the Northern hard-coal field. 
The English-speaking mine-workers, recog¬ 
nizing in it an instrument of defense against 
the Slav, found themselves organized within 
its ranks to such an extent that they inaugurated 
a strike in September, 1900. 


THE MINE WORKERS 89 

That it was the English-speaking mine-worker 
of the Northern field who forced this strike 
there is no doubt. Not only did the movement 
culminating in that contest start in the Northern 
district, but practically all the demands at that 
time were the complaints of the miners in the 
upper counties. The cry against exorbitant 
charges for powder, the opposition to the com¬ 
pany store and company doctor, the demand 
that favoritism in allotting working-places should 
cease, the complaint against the large ton, the 
demand for a check-weighman and for com¬ 
pliance with the semi-monthly and cash pay-day 
laws were all grievances confined almost exclu¬ 
sively to the men in the Northern field, affecting 
very little, if at all, the Southern mine-employees. 
In fact, of all the demands in the strike of 1900 
those asking for an increase in wages and for 
the abolition of the sliding scale were the only 
ones seriously affecting the Schuylkill mine- 
workers ; even these were not of very great con¬ 
cern to a majority of them, because, on the whole, 
the Slavs were satisfied with their wages and 


90 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


conditions of employment. The result was that, 
though the entire Northern field became idle on 
the very first day of the strike, the men in the 
lower region were half-hearted in its inaugura¬ 
tion and refused for a time to join their fellow- 
workers of the Wyoming field. Indeed, had it 
not been for the great political interests at stake 
the strikers, in spite of their organization, might 
have failed utterly. But this industrial disturb¬ 
ance, just at election time, alarmed the leaders of 
the National Republican party for the re-election 
of their candidate for President of the United 
States, and they induced the railroad presidents 
to grant some of the demands of the strikers, 
which brought the conflict to a close. 

If that strike had failed, the power of the 
union, not yet firmly established in the anthra¬ 
cite region, would more than likely have been 
broken and the English-speaking races would 
have been very soon forced out of the Northern 
mines, as many of them had been out of the 
mines in the Southern field. 

Neither in 1900 nor later had the organiza- 


THE MINE WORKERS 


9i 

tion of the United Mine Workers of America 
any vital interest in the local race conflict, except 
so far as it had to be reckoned with as a factor 
in that organization's struggle to control the 
competitive conditions in the various coal-fields 
and markets of the entire country. But the suc¬ 
cessful issue of the strike in 1900 had two im¬ 
portant effects on the Slav invasion. Not only 
was the movement of the English-speaking 
miners out of the industry checked by giving 
them a wage nearer to their standard of living, 
but the Slav, who shared in the advance, began 
to see his advantages in maintaining it. For the 
first time the two industrial groups recognized a 
mutual interest. 

When the struggle of 1902 was precipitated, 
the English-speaking miner and the Slav were 
found working side by side for a common cause. 
Like the strike of 1900, that of 1902 was forced 
by the English-speaking miner in the Northern 
field. He asked not only for a direct increase 
in his wages, but for the abolition of numerous 
grievances which indirectly kept his real earnings 


92 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

low. He wanted two thousand two hundred 
and forty pounds, and not two thousand eight 
hundred or more, to constitute a ton; he asked 
that the coal he mined be weighed; he de¬ 
manded a representative to see that the weight 
was correct and the dockage fair; he wanted 
a minimum wage established for many of the 
different occupations in the industry; he asked 
for recognition of his union, in order that he 
might be represented in settling the many vexed 
questions continually arising between himself 
and his employer. 

In formulating these demands the Slav worker 
was also remembered, because his support was 
vitally necessary to the success of the strike. 
The demand for a twenty per cent, increase in 
pay to all men working by the piece (ton, car, 
or yard) was supplemented by a demand for 
a reduction in the working-day from ten to eight 
hours, with no decrease in pay, for all men work¬ 
ing by the day. As a result, the demands called 
for an increase in the rate of pay for all work¬ 
men in and about the mines, including the Slavs 


THE MINE WORKERS 


93 


as well as the English-speaking mine-workers. 
The miners’ laborers, who for the most part are 
Slavs, were to receive their full share of the 
advance to be granted to the miners; and for 
tens of thousands of Slavs employed at day’s 
wages the demand for a reduction in the work¬ 
ing-day from ten to eight hours meant an in¬ 
crease of twenty-five per cent, in the rate of pay. 

The union mine-employees of the Southern 
field, who at this time, as in 1900, had no griev¬ 
ances which otherwise would have caused them 
to leave their employment, actively supported 
the strike under the majority rule of the organs 
ization, and in this case the majority came from 
the Northern field. The organization, taking 
advantage of the habits of subordination incul¬ 
cated in the Slav nationalities by military train¬ 
ing in their native lands, placed at their head as 
local leaders miners of their own races who had 
learned English, and throughout the fight the 
Slav was in this manner held in line for the 
union demands. 

After a five-months’ industrial conflict, the 


THE SLAV INVASION AND 


94 

like of which had never before been witnessed 
in this country, the English-speaking mine- 
worker of the Northern field once more returned 
to his place in the mine, upon assurances that the 
forces which for so many years had been oper¬ 
ating upon him with such great destruction to 
his industrial supremacy in hard-coal mining, as 
well as to his standard of living, would be con¬ 
trolled. This assurance has been partly fulfilled 
by the decision of the Anthracite Coal Strike 
Commission appointed by President Roosevelt. 
By this decision wages have been advanced, hours 
of employment have been reduced, and in other 
ways forces have been put in operation which 
will, to a certain extent, cause the competition of 
the Slav to operate temporarily with less severity 
on the English-speaking nationalities, and, it is 
to be hoped, with less injurious effects to the 
political, social, and industrial institutions of the 
region than it has been doing for the past twenty 
years. 

Before examining more closely what some of 
these effects have been it must be noted that the 


THE MINE WORKERS 


95 


Slav invasion is not the only factor in the grad¬ 
ual withdrawal of the English-speaking races 
from the anthracite fields. Another force, subtle, 
but potent, is constantly at work. This force is 
exerted by the native Americans within the 
region. It is made up of all the varied activities 
of communal life, and it manifests itself through 
the educational, religious, political, and, in gen¬ 
eral, through all the social channels. It is domi¬ 
nated and directed by the ideals and objects of 
American institutions; and, while it may be true 
that these institutions seem often to fail in prac¬ 
tice, yet deep down at the foundation they are 
an elevating influence, and go to form an up¬ 
lifting force which must be taken into con¬ 
sideration in any fair and honest attempt to 
present actual conditions among the anthracite 
mining communities. 

The social forces operate to pull the Eng¬ 
lish-speaking mine-workers out of the anthra¬ 
cite industry. They assume all forms and, in 
cases, take upon themselves many disguises; 
but usually they reach the mine-worker through 


96 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


inspiring in him a desire for better things, either 
for himself or, more generally, for his children, 
and thus increasing his wants. He soon finds 
that as a mine-worker he is unable to supply his 
children with as good clothes as are worn by the 
children of his neighbors not in the mining occu¬ 
pation, or perhaps to send them to school, or in 
general to secure for them more and better op¬ 
portunities. If the worker lives in a small mining 
town, these forces soon push him into a larger 
city, where greater opportunities are at hand. 
They force him to work for a better place in 
the mine—to strive to become a fire-boss or a 
foreman, or perhaps a superintendent. Prac¬ 
tically all the best-paying positions about the col¬ 
lieries to-day are filled by English-speaking mine- 
workers, who have in this way been enabled to 
increase their wages and to meet their always 
growing wants. But there is only a limited num¬ 
ber of such positions; in consequence many Eng¬ 
lish-speaking mine-workers go out of the indus¬ 
try into business or professional callings which 
permit, as a general thing, a greater equality 


THE MINE WORKERS 


97 


between wants and wages. Once out of the in¬ 
dustry, it is only a step, figuratively speaking, 
out of the region. The anthracite communities 
are thus constantly being drained of many of 
their best men. 

As a general statement it is no longer true of 
the English-speaking races in the hard-coal fields 
that the son of a miner follows the occupation of 
his father. This has come to be more and more 
a fact, however, among the Slav nationalities. 


7 


98 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


CHAPTER VIII 

SOME PRESENT-DAY TENDENCIES 

Yesterday the Slav was a pauper immigrant; 
to-day he is what the English, Welsh, Irish, and 
German miner was a quarter of a century ago— 
on the way to becoming an American citizen. 
What sort of a citizen he may be will depend 
upon the influences that are brought to bear upon 
him. It is too early to judge him finally; cer¬ 
tainly he should not be judged too harshly, es¬ 
pecially as he has shown himself adaptable. But 
we may not blink the fact that the Slav offers at 
present a problem of much complexity and dan¬ 
ger. In the communities where he has settled 
he has wrought nothing less than a social revolu¬ 
tion. We have noted to some extent the influ¬ 
ence he has had upon wages and the conditions 
of mine-labor; let us look now for a moment at 
the effect the Slav is having upon the institutions 
of the people among whom he lives. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


99 


To those who knew it twenty years ago noth¬ 
ing marks more clearly the transformation of the 
old Pennsylvania mining town than the changes 
in its churches and its religious observances. In 
the main it may be said that the mixed popula¬ 
tion we have called Slav is a Catholic population, 
although broad traces of the Reformation may 
be found within it. Generally the Bohemians, 
Slovaks, Poles, and Croatians are Roman Catho¬ 
lics. Not a few of the Bohemians, however, are 
Reformed (Presbyterian) and Lutheran; some 
of the Magyars are found to be Protestants, and 
as a general statement it can be said that the 
Reformation has left its imprint among all of 
them. The Germans (Austria) and the Italians 
are also usually Catholics. The Ruthenians, 
Russians, Roumanians, and Servians are gen¬ 
erally Greek Orthodox. 

It will be recalled that one of the serious com¬ 
plaints from the operators’ representatives before 
the Strike Commission was the unnecessarily 
large number of holidays which the “ foreigners” 
were observing. Most of these holidays are re- 


100 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


ligious observances; and as the different churches 
have different holidays, falling on separate days, 
the total number of days’ idleness these observ¬ 
ances force upon the collieries is very large—it 
is estimated to be as many as twenty-eight within 
a year. 

The effect of such an invasion upon the re¬ 
ligious denominations formerly well established 
in the anthracite region has been disastrous. 
Facts and figures in support of this may be had 
in abundance for the asking. It is perhaps suffi¬ 
cient to state here, by way of illustration, that 
within the past ten or fifteen years no less than 
fifteen Congregational churches have been forced 
to withdraw from the three districts. At Shen¬ 
andoah, where the inroads of the Slav appear in 
their most serious proportions, four once flour¬ 
ishing and largely attended Welsh churches are 
now so weak that their disbandment seems to 
be only a question of a very short time. Of these, 
two are Baptist, one Congregational, and one 
Presbyterian, the latter now having only eighteen 
members. They are but the skeleton remains 


THE MINE WORKERS 


IOI 


of once thriving churches. Even some of the 
older establishments of the Roman Catholics 
have suffered. The Irish Catholics, for instance, 
are complaining that their church has not the 
strength in the region it formerly boasted of. 
St. Patrick's Day, which used to be the celebra¬ 
tion of the year within the region, has become 
of so little importance outside that nationality 
that an Irishman remarked not long ago, “ St. 
Patrick’s Day in the anthracite region is nowa¬ 
days a very tame affair.” All this is explained, 
of course, in the fact that as the English-speaking 
races migrate from the region they are taking 
their institutions with them. 

The only Protestant denomination to offer a 
vigorous resistance is the Presbyterian. Ac¬ 
cording to Rev. Charles E. Edwards, of Shenan¬ 
doah, who has direction of the colportage work 
among the “ foreigners,” the only evangelical 
advantages for Italians in the anthracite region 
are afforded by the two Presbyterian (Italian) 
churches at Hazleton and Roseto. He says that 
“ among the far more numerous Slavs, including 


102 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


even nominal adherents, the only evangelical or¬ 
ganizations are those of a few Slovak Lutherans 
and still fewer Slovak Reformed. The most ex¬ 
tensive form of evangelical work has been that of 
colportage. The versions of the Bible commonly 
sold in this region among Slavs are the Bohemian, 
Polish, Russian (with the so-called Slavic, a pe¬ 
culiar type of Russian), Ruthenian, and Slovak. 
The Presbyterian Board of Publication, for the 
first time in its history, recently employed a Bo¬ 
hemian colporteur, and now it appeals for funds 
to employ twenty or more among Italians, 
Slavs, and like races.’’ 

But from the religious, as from the social, 
view-point the comparative elimination of the 
Protestant denominations is not more important 
than that with the Slav has come a large and 
insistent element professing atheism. The Con¬ 
tinental Sunday is fast becoming an institution 
in the anthracite fields. Base-ball playing on the 
Sabbath is not the least indication of this. The 
only difference between the saloon on Sunday 
and on every other week-day is that the front 


THE MINE WORKERS 


103 


door is not wide open. It does not bar admittance, 
however, and there is very little attempt at se¬ 
crecy in the towns where the Slav influence is of 
any political importance. Funerals, weddings, 
christenings, and like customs among the Slavs 
are, as a general thing, observed on Sunday. 
One explanation in defense of this is that Sunday 
is the only day the mine-workers have to them¬ 
selves for such occurrences in their social life. 

With the advancing tide of Catholicism has 
come its own system of education—the parochial 
school. Whatever the value of these schools,— 
and they no doubt have their own merits, which 
need not be discussed here,—there is strong 
reason for believing that the parochial school in 
the anthracite region does not take the place of 
the public school system in the making of Amer¬ 
ican citizens out of Slav children. In spite of 
official reports to the contrary, one learns upon 
good authority that the two parochial schools in 
an important mining town teach no English to 
their pupils. When it is borne in mind that these 
Slav children are, in all probability, destined 


104 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


to live in communities where English is the 
language of communication, it can at once be 
seen how grievous an injury is being done, not 
only to them, but to the anthracite communities, 
a correct knowledge of whose institutions can 
only be gained through the English tongue. 

But all children of Slav parentage—and the 
Slav races are very prolific—do not attend the 
parochial schools. Many of them are in regular 
attendance at the public schools, and in general 
they are diligent and painstaking students. In¬ 
variably one hears good reports of them from 
teachers and superintendents—in fact, not a few 
public school teachers report the Slav children to 
be more proficient and in many ways more pro¬ 
gressive in their studies than children of the Eng¬ 
lish-speaking races. Under the public school 
system many of the Slav children are being 
trained into good American citizens. This edu¬ 
cational force is, perhaps, the one bright promise 
lighting up the uncertain future. Unfortunately, 
its effects seldom reach the adult immigrant— 
the one type of man whose presence in the 


THE MINE WORKERS 


105 


anthracite-producing counties is so full of dark 
forebodings. 

At first the Slav was found only in the “ patch” 
—the small group of buildings usually located 
near a colliery. But to-day he is filling up and 
overflowing the small town, and is appearing in 
the principal thoroughfares of the mining cities 
with his saloon and his butcher shop. He is even 
reaching higher in the business world. Only 
recently a banking house has been opened in 
Shenandoah, conducted exclusively by Slavs. In 
Mahanoy City, Slavs are also largely interested 
in one of the banks, and its business is growing 
rapidly. In each of Shenandoah, Mahanoy City, 
and Plymouth the Slavs have a weekly news¬ 
paper. Shenandoah, with a population exceeding 
twenty thousand, has only one daily newspaper 
printed in English, two other like newspaper 
enterprises, one a daily and the other a weekly, 
having recently suspended. 

In politics the Slavs are already a factor that 
must be reckoned with. They are becoming 
naturalized in an ever-increasing number. In 


io6 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Schuylkill County they are rushing into the nat¬ 
uralization courts at the rate of sixty a month. 
The papers cost each applicant about ten dollars. 
This sum is usually paid by a “ sponsor/’ gen¬ 
erally a local politician of either the Republican 
or Democratic party. In Shenandoah three of 
the town councilmen are Slavs; so also are two 
policemen. In the First Ward of Shenandoah 
the Slavs have seventy per cent, of the total vote. 
In the First Ward of Mahanoy City they control 
at least sixty per cent, of the vote of that ward. 
In Schuylkill County alone the Slavs control the 
elections in the boroughs of Shenandoah, Ma¬ 
hanoy City, Gilberton, Girardville, Minersville, 
and New Philadelphia. In Hazle and Kline 
townships the Slavs are also dominant politically. 
Kline township, near Hazleton, has an Italian as 
its superintendent of public schools. In the 
whole of Schuylkill County the Slavs are suffi¬ 
ciently strong politically to control the county 
elections. 

This is what has already happened. And it is 
only the beginning. In the Presidential election 


THE MINE WORKERS 


107 


of 1900—an election which ordinarily polls a 
heavy vote—the total vote cast by the Socialist 
party in the six more important hard-coal-pro¬ 
ducing counties was 706, and by the Socialist- 
Labor party 335. Two years later, in the election 
for governor, when usually a lighter vote is 
polled than in a Presidential election, the So¬ 
cialist party cast in the six counties a total of 
11,952 votes and the Socialist-Labor party a total 
of 1620. All the other parties—the Republican, 
Democratic, and Prohibition—showed a marked 
decrease, the Republican from 81,144 to 53,620 
and the Democratic from 65,222 to 58,748 votes. 
Luzerne County increased its vote for the So¬ 
cialist party from 392 in 1900 to 4556 in 1902, 
Schuylkill County from 28 in 1900 to 2794 in 
1902, Northumberland from 46 to 2002, Carbon 
from hi to 1643, Lackawanna from 121 to 918, 
and Dauphin from 8 to 39. In Luzerne, Schuyl¬ 
kill, Carbon, and Northumberland counties this 
vote gives to the Socialist party a sufficient num¬ 
ber to decide any election. 

It is true that the comparison is made under 


io8 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


what some may claim to be abnormal conditions, 
the industrial disturbances of 1902 furnishing an 
exceptional and favorable opportunity for the 
spread and inculcation of Socialistic doctrines. 
Even with all this granted, do not the conditions 
teach us a warning? The material is in the an¬ 
thracite region whenever the opportunity comes 
(and that it will come again there is no doubt) 
for the enforcement, through political machinery 
having legal sanction, of principles and policies 
which, to say the least, are foreign to our past. 

It has been said that the Slav at present is a 
source of danger to his community. In Schuyl¬ 
kill County, with a total population of 175,000, 
nineteen murders were committed from April 13, 
1902, to August 2, 1903, an average of about 
one murder every three weeks. Of these nineteen 
murders, the county authorities have been unable 
to trace the responsibility in as many as nine 
cases, but the names of the victims and of their 
assailants, so far as the latter are known, em¬ 
phasize the fact that they are very largely among 
the Slav races, and in the districts where these 


THE MINE WORKERS 


109 

nationalities are located. Shenandoah has a 
larger Slav population than any other town in the 
county, and of the nineteen crimes mentioned, 
nine of them, or nearly one-half, occurred in that 
borough. It was in Shenandoah that the troops 
were first sent, following rioting, in both the 
strike of 1900 and that of 1902. 

A prominent and trustworthy county official, 
whose duties make him familiar with the situa¬ 
tion, says: 

“ My experience has been that crime among the for¬ 
eign Slav element, from which source most of it comes, 
is protected by its own class. Although many murders 
have been perpetrated in Schuylkill County, most of 
them were committed in the foreign quarters, and Eng¬ 
lish-speaking officers find it impossible to secure in¬ 
formation. While many murders have been committed 
by individuals, the William Penn murder case, of a few 
years ago, developed the fact that a secret organiza¬ 
tion had brought about the same, and nine members 
were convicted of murder in the first degree, although 
upon a new trial they were all found guilty of murder 
in the second degree and sentenced to long terms of 
imprisonment. Twenty cases have been returned within 
the past two years wherein the murderers have gone 


no THE SLAV INVASION AND 


unpunished. The commissioners are now considering 
the advisability of offering one thousand dollars in each 
case of murder, and five hundred dollars in all of the 
felonies below the grade of murder.” 

This William Penn murder case, in which a 
man named Rutskowski was killed, is of interest 
here, in that it brought to the attention of the 
authorities the existence of two societies among 
the Slavs—the Zukes and the Propenokis—who 
indirectly were responsible for crime. They are 
not secret societies, like the “ Mollie Maguires,” 
organized particularly for murder, but crime is 
rather an indirect result. The real object is 
social, in itself harmless enough, but through 
them is preserved and not infrequently intensified 
the personal jealousies and hatreds bred in Con¬ 
tinental Europe, and which now and then are 
given scope for exercise through the society. 
Usually the Zukes and Propenokis are composed 
of members of the same race coming to the coal¬ 
fields from the same small geographical unit or 
neighborhood in Europe. Not infrequently 
crime is traced to feuds between these societies. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


hi 


In Luzerne County, with a total population of 
257,000, there have been forty-five murders 
from January, 1901, to August, 1903. Of these 
only one was committed by a native American, 
three or four by persons born in Ireland, and all 
the others by members of the Slav races. The 
persons murdered were principally “ foreigners/’ 
and the killing usually took place during a 
drunken brawl accompanying a wedding, chris¬ 
tening, or other like celebration. 

Both Schuylkill and Luzerne counties have 
relatively a large number of foreign-born. In the 
latter they are about equally divided between the 
foreign-born English-speaking races and the Slav 
nationalities, while in the former the Slavs ex¬ 
ceed the English-speaking by over 3000. When 
we come to a consideration of Lackawanna 
County, we find that of the foreign-born over 
35,000 are of the English-speaking and less than 
19,000 of the Slav races. Lackawanna’s total 
population exceeds that of Schuylkill County by 
nearly 20,000, and yet, since January, 1902, there 
have been only nine murders committed there, as 


112 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


compared with twelve in Schuylkill County, from 
April of the same year. The present term (Oc¬ 
tober, 1903) of Lackawanna’s Criminal Court, 
however, shows a larger number of cases than 
usual among the Slavs, as the latter are in¬ 
creasing rapidly in that county. In the alpha¬ 
betical file of cases the M’s have increased to 
three boxes, the S’s to three boxes, and the R’s 
to two boxes, when formerly they had but one 
box each. These letters largely predominate 
among the initials of the surnames of the Slavs. 

Nearly every observer of conditions among 
the “ foreigners” in the anthracite fields, when 
asked as to the principal cause of crime among 
the Slavs, points emphatically to the large con¬ 
sumption of liquors by these races. This drink¬ 
ing habit is the first of their vices acquired after 
landing in this country. In Schuylkill County 
alone the total beer and porter production of the 
ten breweries within the county, for the eight 
months ending with September, 1903, was ap¬ 
proximately 230,000 barrels. In addition to this, 
thirty agencies of breweries outside the county 


THE MINE WORKERS 


113 

sold, it is estimated, about 20,000 barrels. Prac¬ 
tically all of this was consumed within Schuylkill 
County. With a total population of 175,000, this 
is an average of over forty-seven gallons for each 
man, woman, and child for the eight months. 
Besides, this calculation does not consider the 
whiskey, gin, rum, wines, and other alcoholic 
beverages consumed within the county, in which 
there is a total of 1167 liquor licenses, about one- 
fourth of which are held by Slavs. This is a 
license for every one hundred and fifty of the 
population. On Saturday evenings and Sundays, 
at weddings, christenings, funerals, and other 
celebrations and observances, drinking among the 
Slavs is carried to excess, the occasion not infre¬ 
quently ending in a free-for-all fight, and some¬ 
times in a small riot, in which participants are 
shot and stabbed and not infrequently killed. 
Many of the most serious crimes among the Slavs 
are invariably traced, whenever they can be 
traced at all, to some drunken orgy. 

These are facts. As to placing the responsi¬ 
bility for them, we should not be too quick in 
8 


114 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


jumping to conclusions. Nearly every Slav 
saloon-keeper has had his license secured for him 
by some one or more of the brewers within the 
region whose product is sold over the bar. And 
these brewers are of the English-speaking races. 
Their influence extends into the ordinance-mak¬ 
ing bodies of the mining towns; they not infre¬ 
quently dictate municipal and even county con¬ 
trol of the liquor system. I was told of a case 
where the Mahanoy City authorities not long ago 
deprived five or six Slav saloon-keepers of their 
licenses because of the general disrepute in which 
the places they conducted were held. The brewer 
who was “ backing” these saloonists put political 
and other “ influences” to work at Pottsville, the 
county seat, and within a very short time these 
saloon-keepers were back at their old business. 
There seems to exist among the brewers an ex¬ 
tensive system of exploitation of the Slav saloon¬ 
keepers, by which the latter are required to pay a 
certain percentage to the brewers for securing 
the license. 

But the brewers are not the only exploiters of 


THE MINE WORKERS 


ii 5 

the Slav races. In every county and every city 
and mining town within the anthracite region 
there are many representatives of the pettifog¬ 
ging, or “ shyster,” lawyer. Through their ma¬ 
lign activity counter-suits by the scores are contin¬ 
ually being brought among the foreigners. These 
men make use of the courts and other legal instru¬ 
ments at every turn to advance their own selfish 
ends. One prominent lawyer and official of one 
of the counties says that this is indeed a serious 
and a growing evil. Through it he accounts 
for more than half the cases that each term 
are brought before the courts—cases which are 
so trivial that they never should have gone be¬ 
yond the magistrates, and in many cases should 
not have reached even that lower court. 

Unfortunately, the magistrate is often an ally 
of the disreputable lawyer in exploiting the Slav, 
who is at the mercy of justices of the peace, con¬ 
stables, and other minor officials. In Hazleton 
not long ago a “ foreigner,” arrested for assault 
and battery, was fined forty-eight dollars, and 
when a mine superintendent advised him to ask 


ii6 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


for a receipt, the magistrate for sole reply kicked 
the Slav downstairs. The sequel is instructive: 
When a few days later the same Slav fought 
again, the former victim went to the same magis¬ 
trate for a warrant, because, as he explained, it 
was the other fellow who was to be fined this 
time! 

All these are but mere details. Illustrations 
of other dangerous tendencies, just as clear and 
distinct, could be given by the score. Enough 
has been said, however, to indicate that united 
with other forces they are working towards in¬ 
evitable injury to organized society and its insti¬ 
tutions. Sad and depressing as is a view of the 
composite picture they present, it must not be for¬ 
gotten that the Slav immigrants, and particularly 
their descendants, are impressionable and adapt¬ 
able ; that forces are at work which have already 
done much for them, and will do more. One of 
these, already touched upon, is the public school. 
Its results though sure, are slow. Unfortunately, 
it cannot affect the Slav immigrant who comes to 
the anthracite region full-grown. This individ- 


THE MINE WORKERS 


ii 7 


ual must be brought under the influence of a yet 
more powerful agency, one which makes also 
for civilization and for Americanism in the best 
sense. In the anthracite region the means more 
nearly approaching this need is the labor organi¬ 
zation—the United Mine Workers of America. 


ii8 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


CHAPTER IX 

THE TASK BEFORE THE UNION 

While the Slav invasion of the anthracite 
region has its social, religious, political, and 
educational phases it should not be forgotten 
that it is primarily and essentially an industrial 
problem. For this reason a solution must come 
through industrial means. If these are success¬ 
ful, all the other broad social questions, which 
are so acutely presented within the fields, will 
by that very success be largely supplied with a 
satisfactory answer. These industrial means, as 
has been indicated, are the United Mine Workers 
of America. 

This organization is taking men of a score 
of nationalities—English-speaking and Slav— 
men of widely different creeds, languages, and 
customs, and of varying powers of industrial 
competition, and is welding them into an indus¬ 
trial brotherhood, each part of which can at least 


THE MINE WORKERS 


119 

understand of the others that they are working 
for one great and common end. 

This bond of unionism is stronger than one can 
readily imagine who has not seen its mysterious 
workings or who has not been a victim of its 
members’ newly-found enthusiasm. It is to-day 
the strongest tie than can bind together the 147,- 
000 mine-workers and the thousands dependent 
upon them. It is more to them than politics, 
more than religion, more even that the social ties 
usually holding together the members of a com¬ 
munity. It is all of this and more to the mine- 
workers, because it has done for them what all 
these others could not do. It tends to destroy 
enmity between men in different occupations in 
the industry, at different collieries, in the differ¬ 
ent fields, and even between the different nation¬ 
alities. Before the organization came into the 
region group fought industrially against group, 
class against class, race against race, and district 
against district. Instead of this continual internal 
strife the union is directing their energies into the 
channel of co-operation one with another. Organ- 


120 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


ization is teaching them the great benefit to the 
individual that comes from co-operation for the 
common good. In brief, the union is socializing 
the heterogeneous mass; is making it over from 
the individualistic and race point of view to that 
of the industrial group to which they, for the 
time being, happen to belong. 

It is changing the mine-worker from a pessi¬ 
mist to an optimist. It has not prevented him 
from being discontented; it has probably made 
him more so, but there is as much difference be¬ 
tween a despairing pessimism and a noble, opti¬ 
mistic discontent as there is between poverty and 
progress. The former is hopeless; the latter 
hopeful. The former makes for drunkenness, 
extravagance of small wages and all the accom¬ 
panying social evils of a mining town. The lat¬ 
ter teaches sobriety, frugality, and strengthens 
many of those virtues which go to make individ¬ 
ual and social progress. 

As has been indicated, prior to the strike of 
1900, the dominant line of demarcation in the 
social and industrial life of the communities 


THE MINE WORKERS 


121 


within the region was racial. There were strong 
differences among men of the same nationality 
and between different races of the same industrial 
group, and these differences gave marked causes 
for frequent internal strife. Each race had and 
still retains very largely its own distinct customs 
and beliefs, with individual and class passions 
and inherited hatreds. Between the Lithuanian 
and the Pole, for example, an inveterate hatred 
seems to exist, the former considering himself 
deeply offended if he is called a Pole. This en¬ 
mity is carried to such an extent by the Lithu¬ 
anian miner that he refuses to have a Pole work 
with him as a laborer. Between the Magyars and 
the Slovaks there is also transplanted hatred 
and deep-seated enmity. 

Now the United Mine Workers of America is 
breaking down these inherited forces of separa¬ 
tion and is drawing new lines of demarcation 
that bind more closely the heretofore antagon¬ 
istic groups and races. No longer is it of prime 
interest to the mine-worker to know of his fellow 
whether he be Pole or Welshman, Lithuanian 


122 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


or Irishman; of far greater importance is the 
question whether he is for the cause or against 
it—whether he is union or non-union. In brief, 
the racial and religious and social forces which 
heretofore tended to divide the mine-workers 
into innumerable groups antagonistic one to the 
other are being bridged over by the much more 
powerful force of industrial self-interest. The 
principal at its base is best explained, perhaps, 
by a comparison with the forces operating upon 
capital in the anthracite industry which have re¬ 
sulted in a combination of this capital. 

The spokesmen for the United Mine Workers 
have often pointed out that the organization is 
but attempting to do for mine-labor what its em¬ 
ployers have already succeeded in doing for an¬ 
thracite capital, yet the aptness of the compari¬ 
son has been little understood. Was there a well 
recognized over-supply of labor? So was there 
a surplus of capital. If the English-speaking 
miner yielded to the lower grade Slav labor, so 
did capital demanding a higher return give way 
before a cheaper capital,—that is, before one with 


THE MINE WORKERS 


123 


lower costs of production and one satisfied with 
a lower interest. And the final result, in the one 
case as in the other, was the formation and tri¬ 
umph of “ unionism/’ 

During the period when the unrestrained com¬ 
petition of the Slav was destroying a fair wage 
for anthracite labor the uncontrolled competition 
of capital with capital in the production of hard 
coal wrought ruin not only to a fair rate of in¬ 
terest but to a large part of the capital itself 
invested in that industry. The high interest 
which capital at one time secured from anthra¬ 
cite mining had drawn other capital into the re¬ 
gion to produce coal. Soon there was too much 
capital invested for the work to be done. Capital 
which could do that work for the least return— 
whose cost of producing coal was lowest—com¬ 
peted with the capital which needed a greater re¬ 
turn in order to meet its higher cost of produc¬ 
tion. Capital generally was in the industry and 
could not readily go elsewhere. It had to earn 
an income for its owner. A low interest was to 
some managers of capital better than no interest. 


124 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Some of the capital demanding a higher return 
sought investment elsewhere, but by far the 
greater part of it was compelled to work for a 
small return, and in not a few cases for no return 
at all. The remuneration of capital in the an¬ 
thracite industry generally was fixed by that part 
of it whose cost of production was lowest. Con¬ 
tinued competition ushered in that period when 
capital, as represented in mining operations and 
transportation facilities, was forced to succumb, 
and bankruptcy after bankruptcy of railroads 
and mining companies attest to the ruinous op¬ 
eration of uncontrolled competition and to the 
fact that capital demanding a fair return for the 
work it performed was unable longer to work 
at the price set by the “ cheaper” capital. 

Then came the remedy—the driving out of 
the “ cheaper” capital by the consolidation of 
small mine properties under large mining com¬ 
panies—the combination of interests through 
railway ownership. And so—enters the union. 
Henceforth anthracite capital was to be just as 
surely union or non-union as the man in the 


THE MINE WORKERS 


125 


mines later on came to be specifically designated. 
The “cheaper” or non-union capital—that 
which could mine coal at a lower cost of produc¬ 
tion and in consequence could sell it at a lower 
price—was either driven from the industry or 
forced to sell its commodity at the price de¬ 
manded by that capital whose cost of production 
is greater. This price is fixed arbitrarily—it is 
set at the highest possible point * that will enable 
the working capital whose cost of production is 
greater to secure what is to it a fair profit. All 
capital producing at less cost necessarily earns a 
higher and higher interest as it approaches that 
having the lowest cost of production. Organiza¬ 
tion of capital, then, is of advantage to all capital 
remaining in the industry. It is a disadvantage 


* There is a point beyond which it cannot go, and that 
is where the consumer begins to exercise his power to 
control price through substituting some other fuel. This 
is plainly seen in the prices of those sizes of anthracite 
used for steam purposes, with which the bituminous 
product competes. In these prices we see again the effect 
of the unrestrained competition of a lower with a higher 
cost of production. 



126 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


to the consumer of coal in the sense that prices 
are higher than under unrestrained competition 
of capital with capital. 

When the cheaper non-union labor is driven 
out * by union labor seeking to maintain a higher 
standard of living, we are touched in two tender 
spots—in our “ humanity” and on the “ pocket- 
book nerve,” and we cry out at once at the cruel 
force employed. We are shocked at the boycott, 
horrified at the riot. But we have no tears for 
the victim none the less surely done to death in 
the wars of capital against capital. The reason 
is that we cannot perceive so clearly the weapons 
used and their deadly effect. A railway which 
wishes to ruin at one blow a hundred competi¬ 
tors, so that it may buy their coal-lands cheap, 

* In the sense here intended the cheaper labor is driven 
from the industry if it raises its price to that of the union 
labor. From the point of view of organization, non¬ 
union labor may remain in the industry if it works for 
union prices. Mere membership or non-membership in 
an organization is not the meaning I give to union and 
non-union labor. Usually, however, the two are iden¬ 
tical. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


127 


uses no clubs, employs no dynamite. It simply 
issues a circular, as the Reading did that fateful 
day in 1871, when it trebled its freight rates. 
Competition dies, but we see no bloodshed. 

The difference in the effect on the public mind 
is due to the fact that labor cannot be separated 
from its possessor, while capital is easily disso¬ 
ciated from the physical being of its owner. It 
is impersonal, while labor must ever be personal 
and human. In driving non-union capital out of 
the industry the person of the owner is not, so 
far as we can see, directly affected. But in the 
case of non-union labor it is necessary to attack 
the individual laborer. This manifests itself 
through boycotting and violence. The underly¬ 
ing forces at work in the case of both capital and 
labor are not, however, one whit different. 

In still another important aspect are the or¬ 
ganization of labor and the union of capital simi¬ 
lar : both mean a higher price for the commodity 
than would result under unrestrained competi¬ 
tion. In the one case the commodity is labor; 
in the other it is coal. In both cases the con- 


128 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


sumer is affected. The consumer of mine-labor 
is the railroad mining company; the consumer 
of coal is the general public. The object of the 
consumer is to secure the commodity at the low¬ 
est possible price. An increase in price, then, 
naturally affects disadvantageously the interests 
of the consumer. For this reason he objects to 
organization to control the price of the commod¬ 
ity.* This explains why the railroad mining 
companies have steadfastly, if not stubbornly, 
refused to recognize the United Mine Workers 
of America. The anthracite-consuming public 
has as persistently refused to recognize the com¬ 
bination of railroads and consolidation of min¬ 
ing companies for the control of the price of 
hard coal. The public has even gone so far as to 
pass laws prohibiting this very thing. Despite 
these laws the combination exists and will con¬ 
tinue to exist. This plain fact the consumers of 


* The consumer feels directly the increase in cost re¬ 
sulting from organization, but does not see so plainly the 
indirect benefits flowing out of organization. He is thus 
inclined to oppose it. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


129 


coal should recognize; they should direct their 
energies to minimizing the evil workings of or¬ 
ganization and aim to secure more and more of 
its benefits instead of trying to deceive themselves 
into the belief that that which exists does not 
exist. 

The same can be said of the railroad mining 
companies in their relation to the organization of 
mine-labor. The forces compelling the mine- 
workers to unite for their common good are so 
powerful that the opposition of the combination 
of capital must ultimately prove futile. It mat¬ 
ters not what the particular organization is 
called; if it is not the United Mine Workers of 
America the same forces will be at work under 
some other name. And the cost to capital in 
opposing the working of these forces will in the 
end be far greater than would result from a 
recognition of them and the directing of efforts 
towards minimizing their evil effects. 

As it is, organized capital in the anthracite 
industry is denying to organized labor what it 
claims for itself: organized capital demands 


9 


I 3 0 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

for non-union labor what it refuses to grant to 
non-union capital. From the point of view of 
the public, however, if organized capital exer¬ 
cises the “ right” to compel non-union capital to 
sell its coal at the rates set by the capital having 
the greater cost of production, then organized 
labor has just as much of a “ right” to compel 
non-union labor to sell its labor at a price—to 
work for a wage—which will enable that part of 
it to support its standard of living which is at a 
greater cost in producing its labor. If this is 
true, then its opposite—that the laborer has the 
“ right” to sell his commodity in a “ free” market 
to whom, when, and how he chooses—is not true. 
It would be just the same as demanding and com¬ 
pelling that capital in the anthracite industry 
which can produce coal at the lowest possible 
price shall have the “ right” to sell its commodity 
in a “ free” market at whatever price the owners 
of that capital chose to ask. But when this ques¬ 
tion is propounded to the manager of capital in¬ 
vested in the railroad mining companies he at 
once ceases to be a consumer of mine-labor and 


THE MINE WORKERS 


131 

becomes a producer of coal. As a consumer his 
object is to secure the commodity labor at the 
lowest possible price; as a producer his purpose 
is to sell his commodity coal at the highest possi¬ 
ble price. This explains the reason, but does not 
justify the attitude of the manager of capital 
who denies to non-union capital that “ right” 
which he so persistently claims for non-union 
labor. 

The “ right” of the individual worker in the 
anthracite industry is not so much in a “ free” 
market as it is in a market where a fair wage is 
assured. He has had a “ free” market in open 
competition and we have seen what it has re¬ 
sulted in to him. Capital in the different pro¬ 
tected industries in the United States would have 
the same kind of a “free” market if the tariff 
bars were let down and it was forced to meet the 
competition of cheaper products from European 
or other countries. Labor reared under Ameri¬ 
can conditions and forced by our social and po¬ 
litical institutions to meet a certain standard of 
living should not be compelled to compete with 


132 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


European labor having no such demands upon 
it. The experience of the past twenty years in 
the anthracite industry teaches us that it will be 
forced so to compete unless labor organizes for 
its own protection. In this way it may not be 
able to control immigration through tariff laws, 
but it can protect its market by controlling the 
competition of this cheaper European labor when 
it enters that industry. Its aim in so doing is to 
secure what it believes to be a fair market, by 
setting a minimum price below which labor in 
that industry shall not be sold. 

It should not be inferred from what has been 
said that the writer argues for the retention in 
the anthracite industry of the English-speaking 
nationalities—the native Americans and the 
English, Welsh, Scotch, Irish, and Germans. 
Their supremacy in this industry is soon to be, 
if it is not already, a thing of the past never to 
be regained. He does believe, however, that it 
should be possible so to control economic forces 
as to bring about the supplanting of the English- 
speaking races by the Slav with much less injury 


THE MINE WORKERS 


133 


than in the past has been done to the workers 
and to their communities. By all means the 
low standard of living of the Slav should not be 
permitted to dominate the industry. If the forces 
which each year bring greater pressure to bear 
on capital to secure a relatively lower cost of 
production are allowed to work on labor uncon¬ 
trolled, it will be only a question of time when 
the coming supremacy of the Slav will in turn 
be attacked by still cheaper labor, and the 
struggle of the past quarter of a century will 
have to be fought all over again. 

Whatever nationality is to dominate the in¬ 
dustry, a standard of living conformable to 
American conditions should be enforced upon the 
workers as well as upon capital. This is possi¬ 
ble under present conditions only through such 
an organization as the United Mine Workers of 
America. 


i 3 4 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


CHAPTER X 

IN STRIKE TIMES 

The effects of the Slav invasion of the anthra¬ 
cite coal-fields are not confined to the small area 
in Eastern Pennsylvania where coal is produced. 
We need only to review the course of events 
during the strike of 1902 to be convinced of 
their more far-reaching consequences. 

When this strike was inaugurated on May 12 
by the United Mine Workers of America the 
operators, as if by common agreement, made no 
effort to continue mining operations. This pas¬ 
sive attitude of the mining companies aided in 
cutting off the entire production of anthracite 
coal in all three fields. 

Convinced, as they were from the very be¬ 
ginning, that the industry had entered upon an 
indefinite period of idleness, the officials of the 
United Mine Workers took immediate steps to 
get employment outside the region for as large 


THE MINE WORKERS 


135 


a number of the men as possible. They realized 
that by doing so they would not only lessen the 
number for whom relief would have to be given 
when that problem became a pressing one, but 
the earnings thus secured would aid in post¬ 
poning that time, as well as in furnishing that 
relief when it would have to be given. Fortu¬ 
nately for the union, the condition of the general 
labor market throughout the Eastern and Mid¬ 
dle Western States was favorable to the absorp¬ 
tion of a portion of the vast army of 147,000 
men and boys made idle by the strike. The entire 
suspension of hard-coal mining increased the de¬ 
mand for the bituminous product, and this nat¬ 
urally gave work for more men in the central 
competitive soft-coal fields,—Ohio, Indiana, Illi¬ 
nois, and Western Pennsylvania,—into which a 
large number of the anthracite miners migrated.* 


* The United Mine Workers instructed its members, 
through the assistance of the press and the pulpit, not to 
go into the soft-coal fields of Virginia and West Vir¬ 
ginia, as a strike of the mine-employees in those States 
was then probable. It was inaugurated on June 7. 



136 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


With the assistance of organized labor, which 
at once came to the aid of the union, others 
secured employment in the seaboard cities and 
towns, in railroad-construction work, and in the 
different industries where the skill of the miner 
made him a welcome employee. Many of the 
foreigners, with their hoarded earnings, sailed 
to their old homes in Europe. So great was the 
exodus of mine-workers within two months after 
the strike began that between 25,000 and 30,000, 
it is estimated, had left the region. Most of 
these were skilled miners. Without them very 
few of the other 110,000 mine-employees would 
be able to resume work at the collieries. Thus 
the miners held the key to the situation whenever 
the crisis was to come, and it was of the greatest 
advantage to the strike leaders to keep these par¬ 
ticular mine-workers in employment elsewhere 
until the union instructed them to return. 

In shutting off the supply of anthracite the 
strike left not a few of the railroads with prac¬ 
tically no freight from the region; with no 
freight to haul, there was no need for many of 


THE MINE WORKERS 


137 


the train crews; with the cars and engines idle, 
or on other railroads, there was but little use for 
the mechanics in the local repair shops; with the 
roads transporting no coal to tidewater, there was 
a less demand for the vessels engaged in coast¬ 
wise coal-trade; with many of these vessels tied 
up, idleness was forced upon dockmen and crews; 
with no coal to sell, retail dealers in the large 
cities and towns soon closed their yards, laying 
off their employees and in other ways reducing 
expenses to a minimum, some of them even going 
so far as to retire permanently from the business; 
with the miners idle or out of the region, the 
demand for powder was greatly lessened, thus 
closing many of the powder-mills in the anthra¬ 
cite region and compelling their employees to 
join the already large number of idlers in the 
three fields. The general cutting down of ex¬ 
penses and husbanding of resources all along the 
business line by those dependent directly and in¬ 
directly upon the anthracite industry led to the 
temporary discharge of clerks, bookkeepers, and 
other employees of business concerns throughout 


138 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

the cities and towns in the anthracite districts. 
So extensive was control exercised over expendi¬ 
tures that scores of saloons were closed through 
thousands of mine-workers taking the pledge to 
abstain from intoxicants during the strike. Thus 
indirectly the strike was responsible for thou¬ 
sands of workmen not engaged in mining being 
forced out of their ordinary employments. 

Within the anthracite region, on the very 
first day of the strike, a sharp line of demarca¬ 
tion was drawn between the union and non-union 
worker. The latter was the man who, for var¬ 
ious reasons, dominant among which was his 
self-interest, refused to become a member of the 
United Mine Workers. It might truthfully be 
said that he was the conservative type of work¬ 
ingman in that he believed himself to be an inde¬ 
pendent man with the “ right” to say how, when, 
and where he should work without dictation or 
interference, as he called it, from the union. In 
brief, the non-union man was one imbued with 
political doctrines of liberty and independence 
which he endeavored to apply to economic or 


THE MINE WORKERS 


139 


industrial conditions, and his own particular 
necessities forced him into the belief that he was 
a martyr to those principles. His attitude, when 
carried into action, was destructive to the aims 
and objects of the union mine-worker who had 
been led to believe in the good of the whole 
group—in “ the greatest good to the greatest 
number”—as opposed to the non-union man’s in¬ 
dividualistic point of view. Better conditions of 
employment, the union man had been taught 
through experience, could come only through the 
organization of all for the good of all. Had not 
better living conditions already been secured in 
some measure through the efforts of the union 
in the strike of 1900? and had not these benefited 
nearly all the mine-workers ? To him these ques¬ 
tions answered themselves. He looked upon the 
non-union man as an enemy in league with the 
employers of mine-workers; towards him, as 
well as towards them, he directed all the weapons 
of the organization, even to the use of force, 
justifying the latter in his unshaken belief that 
the ends of the union were good. 


140 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


The non-union mine-worker should not be 
confused with the “ scab.” The former has many- 
industrial and social virtues; the latter possesses 
none. He can best be likened unto the mercenary 
soldier who fights under any banner for pay. A 
principle is as far removed from the “ scab” in 
his work as honesty is from a thief. The man 
who formed the “ scab” type during the strike 
was, as a rule, drawn from the large cities; he 
was not, from any point of view, let alone that of 
industrial efficiency, a good type of man; he 
was such as to be regarded with contempt not 
alone by the union miner, but in many cases by 
the non-union employee, the latter even going so 
far as to refuse to work alongside the “ scab,” not 
infrequently preferring to join the men on strike. 
Otherwise the attitude of the non-union man to¬ 
wards the “ scab” was a passive one; that of the 
union man exceedingly active. The “ scab” was 
to the union mine-worker what a red flag is to an 
already enraged bull; and, unfortunately for 
peace and order, his position as a “ deputy,” or 
not infrequently as a coal and iron policeman or 


THE MINE WORKERS 


141 

special guard, was always flaunting the “ scab” 
in the faces of the strikers. The regular coal and 
iron policemen—members of a legally organized 
police force patrolling the anthracite districts 
year in and year out to preserve peace and pro¬ 
tect property—were not of the “ scab” type, but 
in the general confusion following the large in¬ 
crease in the number of coal and iron policemen 
the strikers directed their opposition indiscrim¬ 
inately against nearly all members of this legally 
constituted authority. As the strike progressed, 
all the men at work about the collieries came to 
be regarded by the indiscriminating public in the 
coal-region as “ scabs.” To the union men they 
were all “ unfair” workers. 

To prevent the bringing in of men from out¬ 
side the coal-region to take the places of the 
strikers, the officers of the union secured the as¬ 
sistance of organized labor in all the large Eastern 
cities. To provide for the cases where these efforts 
failed, committees of the striking employees 
picketed all the railroad stations within the re¬ 
gion, using every effort, even to the extent of 


142 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


paying return transportation, to induce the “ im¬ 
ports,” as the new men were sometimes called, 
from accepting work under the mining com¬ 
panies. Usually the “ imports” were brought in 
under guard, or secretly at night, and in these 
cases disturbances of the peace and small-sized 
riots were of frequent occurrence. Once within 
the well-guarded grounds, the strike-breakers 
were generally beyond the reach of the strikers. 

To keep all workers away from the collieries, 
even those whose employment was necessary to 
preserve the mines from the accumulation of 
water and gas, such as engineers, pumpmen, etc., 
the strikers had committees at work night and 
day. These committees met the workers along 
the highways or at their homes, and if persuasion 
failed to keep them from working, recourse was 
had to force, which took the form of duckings in 
creeks or rivers, the marching of non-union men 
and scabs along the public highways to their 
home in scanty attire, the whitewashing of some, 
the stoning and assaulting of others, and the 
visitation upon the workers of other forms of 


THE MINE WORKERS 


143 


punishment devised by the ingenuity of the mob. 
So great was this interference with those who 
continued at work that by June the mining com¬ 
panies had turned their collieries into armed bar¬ 
ricades, with newly-built or repaired houses for 
the accommodation of the workers, the whole 
grounds in many cases being surrounded by a 
high wooden fence topped with four or five 
strands of barbed wire. Recourse to other means 
was had by the strikers to accomplish their ends: 
the workers were held up to public scorn and 
ridicule by their names being published in the 
“ unfair list” in the local newspapers as those 
“ unfit to associate with honorable menthey 
were represented in effigies dangling from elec¬ 
tric-light, telegraph, and telephone poles and 
wires in front of their homes or along the high¬ 
ways; they were warned of the fate awaiting 
them by graves being dug in their yards with 
their names inscribed on the boards placed above 
the mounds for tombstones; the sign of “ the 
skull and cross bones” was painted on their 
houses; messages were sent to them threatening 


144 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


them and their families with dire results if they 
remained more than twenty-four hours in the 
community. 

Of all the means employed by the strikers to 
accomplish their ends, that of the boycott was the 
most effective. This boycott system received its 
force from public sanction, the great body of the 
inhabitants in the coal-region strongly favoring 
the cause of the men on strike. A prominent and 
highly respected citizen of one of the mining 
towns was expelled from a benevolent society 
which had for its object the assisting of sick 
members and the defraying of part of the funeral 
expenses of those who died, of which society he 
had been a member in good standing for nearly 
twenty-eight years; a member of twelve years’ 
standing in a temperance society was forced to 
resign; the explanation of both actions was non¬ 
membership in the union. Landlords would not 
accommodate men brought into the districts to 
take the places of the strikers; servant girls in 
public hostelries refused to cook for or wait upon 
them; barbers would not shave them; merchants 


THE MINE WORKERS 


145 

and saloonists would not have them for cus¬ 
tomers; dairymen would not supply them with 
milk. This boycott was enforced to the extent of 
physicians being compelled to decline attendance 
upon and druggists being forced to refuse medi¬ 
cine to the non-union mine-workers and their 
families. Thus it was but a short step from boy¬ 
cotting the workers to persecuting their families 
and relatives. Children of mine-workers on 
strike refused to attend the school and asked for 
the discharge of a lady teacher whose aged father 
was a watchman at one of the mines; children of 
union mine-workers would not attend Sunday- 
school with their former playmates whose rela¬ 
tives remained at work; members of the Lace- 
makers’ Union employed at a silk-mill refused to 
work alongside girls whose fathers and brothers 
would not go on strike; clerks were dismissed 
from stores because they were unfortunate 
enough, in this instance, to be related to non¬ 
union mine-workers; members of a church went 
so far as to refuse to worship by electric lights 
furnished by a company employing non-union 


10 


146 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


firemen; congregations were even split into fac¬ 
tions by union members refusing to worship 
alongside non-union mine-workers; promises of 
marriage were broken because relatives of one 
of the contracting parties were non-union 
men. 

Each community within the region was di¬ 
vided against itself, by far the greater portion 
ostracising all those who continued in employ¬ 
ment at the mines. In brief, without tiring the 
reader with detailed illustrations, nearly all the 
strong social bonds usually holding together 
the individuals of a community were interfered 
with and the channel of their operation diverted 
by the wide-spread system of boycott which was 
enforced. So severe was its operation that “ alli¬ 
ances^ were formed in all the principal towns 
throughout the region to counteract the boycott 
and to punish those enforcing it by offering 
money rewards for the conviction of persons 
found guilty of specified offenses. 

With such forces in action it is little to be won¬ 
dered at that peace and order were frequently 


THE MINE WORKERS 


147 


disturbed. Aroused human passion and embit¬ 
tered class hatred were given a loose rein; public 
sentiment, which should have held a check on 
these unguided and uncontrolled enemies to or¬ 
ganized society, seemed only to urge them on 
their devastating course. Despite the responses 
of the sheriffs to the appeals of the operators for 
protection; despite the large increase in the num¬ 
ber of officers to preserve order, and despite the 
frequent proclaiming of the riot act and threats 
to call for troops, the machinery of local govern¬ 
ment in the coal-fields was interfered with and 
made almost useless by public sentiment, called 
by some the “ tyranny of the majority,” over¬ 
whelmingly endorsing the strikers’ cause and in 
nearly every case openly or secretly supporting 
their acts, even to the violation of law and order. 
Thus justice frequently miscarried by juries, 
summoned to try offending strikers, being more 
often than not composed of mine-workers and 
their sympathizers. The sworn officers of the 
law, in their endeavors to perform their duties, 
were as dry leaves before an autumn storm. As 


148 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


early as July io the sheriff of Carbon County had 
called upon the governor of Pennsylvania for 
troops; but this request was refused, the chief 
executive of the State believing that the county 
official had not exhausted all his powers for pre¬ 
serving the peace. Disorders in the various sec¬ 
tions grew apace, and on July 29, following a riot 
at Shenandoah, in which one man was killed 
and forty or more shot, a riot precipitated by an 
attack upon a deputy sheriff who was escorting 
non-union men from one of the collieries, the 
Eighth and Twelfth Regiments, the Governors’ 
Troop, and two companies of the Fourth Regi¬ 
ment, Pennsylvania National Guard, were sta¬ 
tioned in Schuylkill County. A month later they 
were joined by the Second Troop Philadelphia 
City Cavalry. 

With no prospects of the mine-workers vol¬ 
untarily returning to their employment unless 
their demands were granted; with the hope of 
the mining officials starving the miners into sub¬ 
mission (if they had ever entertained such a 
hope) being blasted by the unprecedented finan- 


THE MINE WORKERS 


149 


cial support of the public and organized labor; 
with consumers of coal everywhere clamoring 
loudly for a resumption of anthracite mining; 
with the public aroused to such a high pitch of 
justified anger at a too-long-continued state of 
war between operators and miners, such as it had 
never reached since the Civil War, the mining 
companies undertook, about the middle of Sep¬ 
tember, to end the costly struggle by attempting 
to resume the mining of coal. Efforts were made 
by the superintendents and other officials, 
through personal interviews, by posting notices 
about the colliery grounds, in promises that 
“ foremen will not make known the names of 
those applying for work,” and in other ways, to 
induce the miners in particular to return to their 
old places. 

This activity of the operators was accompanied 
by renewed efforts on the part of the strikers to 
keep the mines closed and all workers away from 
the collieries. Railroad tracks extending into the 
grounds were torn up, dams supplying collieries 
with water for steam purposes were blown up, 


150 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

washeries were set on fire and in other cases 
badly wrecked, and armed attacks were made 
upon colliery guards. Non-union men were as¬ 
saulted; houses sheltering the defenceless wives 
and children of workers were dynamited, to some 
the torch was applied, and in others the furnish¬ 
ings wantonly wrecked; deputy sheriffs escort¬ 
ing men to and from the mines were attacked; 
trains bearing non-union workmen were 
wrecked, jails stormed, and officers of the law re¬ 
sisted. Railroad bridges were dynamited or set 
on fire to prevent coal being shipped from the re¬ 
gion, crews hauling non-union mined coal were 
stoned, and in cases attempts were even made to 
wreck passenger as well as coal trains. 

By the beginning of October the whole anthra¬ 
cite region was in a state of lawlessness. Seven 
men had been killed in conflicts between strikers 
on the one side and non-union men and officers of 
the law on the other, three of the killed being 
striking mine-workers, three non-union men, and 
the other one an innocent third party. The issuing 
of sheriffs' proclamations in all the seven coun- 


THE MINE WORKERS 


I5i 

ties affected; the swearing in of hundreds of 
deputies, and even the ordering into the region 
of the Ninth and Thirteenth Regiments, the 
Sheridan Troop, and the remaining eight 
companies of the Fourth Regiment to assist 
the military force already in the fields, were not 
sufficient for the preservation of law and order 
as the struggle between the operators and miners 
became more and more acute. Such were the 
conditions in Schuylkill County that its sheriff 
requested of the governor that martial law be 
declared throughout its borders, but this request 
was not granted. 

On October 6 all the remaining fighting 
strength of the entire National Guard of Penn¬ 
sylvania, comprising a total of nearly ten thou¬ 
sand officers and men, making up one division, 
was ordered into the anthracite counties. In the 
general order Governor Stone designated the 
counties in which “tumults and riots frequently 
occur and mob law reigns,” and instructed the 
commanding officer to “ see that all men who de¬ 
sire to work and their families have ample protec- 


152 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


tion, protect all trains and other property from 
unlawful interference, arrest all persons engaging 
in acts of violence and intimidation and hold them 
under guard until their release will not endanger 
the public peace; that threats, intimidations, as¬ 
saults, and all acts of violence cease at once; the 
public peace and good order will be preserved 
upon all occasions, and that no interference what¬ 
soever will be permitted with officers and men in 
the discharge of their duties.” 

Under the protection of the troops, who es¬ 
corted workers to and from the collieries, anthra¬ 
cite was being mined for the first time since 
May. The operators claimed in October that 
from 17,000 to 20,000 men were at work in the 
mines throughout the three fields. But the total 
amount of coal this small force could get out was 
insignificant in comparison with that necessary to 
meet the demand of the public. 

Despite the fact that the mines had been shut 
down during the summer months, when the need 
for anthracite by householders was at its mini¬ 
mum, industries generally were suffering greatly 


THE MINE WORKERS 


i53 


for fuel by October. The general resort to the 
use of soft coal, making inoperative the smoke- 
nuisance ordinances of Eastern cities, had trans¬ 
ferred to the bituminous coal-fields such an 
unusual demand for fuel as to overtax their 
facilities for supplying it. Besides, these were 
curtailed by a strike of soft-coal mine-workers 
in Virginia and West Virginia, inaugurated on 
June 7 by the United Mine Workers of Amer¬ 
ica,* and by a suspension order issued by the 
officers of the union which limited production 
in the Central and Western Pennsylvania bitu¬ 
minous coal-fields to four days a week.f The lack 


*The object of the strike in the two Virginias was to 
secure the adoption of a uniform scale of wages on a 
basis equal to that of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Western 
Pennsylvania. To this end an increase in wages 
ranging from ten to twenty per cent, was demanded. 
The Michigan mine-workers had been on strike since 
April 1 to secure an eight-hour work-day, the abolish¬ 
ment of specific grievances, and the continuance of the 
wage scale. 

f This order was unsuccessful and was discontinued 
within ten days. The Indianapolis convention of mine- 



154 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


of motive power and cars on the railroads also 
aided in preventing a sufficient supply of soft coal 
being brought to the Eastern markets. 

Conditions were aggravated by the fact that 
there was very little anthracite on hand when the 
miners in the hard-coal fields suspended opera¬ 
tions. This was due to the practical exhaustion 
of the hard-coal markets by the strike of 1900, 
to the efforts of the operators to maintain higher 
prices following that struggle, to the attempts of 
the mine-employees to spread production more 
evenly throughout the twelve months of the year, 
to the restriction of production by them in antici¬ 
pation of the strike, and to the unusually severe 


workers in January had adopted a resolution to the 
effect that in case there was a strike in the anthracite 
fields, and “ should it develop that coal is being shipped 
from the bituminous districts into those markets which 
properly belong to the anthracite product, or that the 
Eastern railroads which now consume anthracite coal 
were being supplied with coal mined by members of our 
organization in the bituminous fields, the National Ex¬ 
ecutive Board shall have full power to order either a 
sectional or a national suspension of work.” 



THE MINE WORKERS 


155 


floods in the anthracite region during the winter 
of 1901. By May of 1902, when mining opera¬ 
tions were entirely suspended, only 18,731,879 
tons had been sent to market, being nearly 4,000,- 
000 tons less than for the same period in 1901. 
By September the shortage in anthracite ex¬ 
ceeded 12,000,000 tons. This was partly com¬ 
pensated for by the increased production of 
soft-coal and coke in this country,* and by the 
importation of coal from Canada and Wales,f 
despite the duty of seventy-six cents a ton. But 
all these sources of supply were not equal to the 

* The Pennsylvania Railroad reported the quantity of 
soft coal originating on its lines east of Pittsburg and 
Erie for the year ending October 18, 1902, to have been 
20,895,958 tons, an increase of 5,121,214 tons over the 
preceding year. For the same period there was a decrease 
of 2,088,015 tons in anthracite shipments over its con¬ 
trolled lines. Up to October 5 the quantity of coke 
shipped over the Pennsylvania had increased from 6,171,- 
478 tons in 1891 to 7,447,303 in 1902. 

f An Associated Press despatch, dated London, October 
6, stated that over 200,000 tons of Welsh coal had been 
ordered for shipment to the United States at prices above 
seven dollars a ton delivered in New York. 



156 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


demand, and prices rose rapidly. By July the 
price in New York of soft coal for steam pur¬ 
poses had increased from three dollars to four 
dollars and fifty cents a ton, the highest price, it 
was said, since 1871. The price of anthracite at 
the mines had more than doubled. 

The scarcity of both anthracite and bituminous 
coal by October had led to the general introduc¬ 
tion of all kinds of substitutes for fuel, including 
coke, gas, oil, wood, charcoal, etc. Gas-plants, 
which formerly sold their by-product—coke—at 
low prices, withdrew this commodity from the 
market for their own use. The demand for gas- 
stoves was not only beyond the ability of the 
companies to supply, but the increase in the use 
of gas taxed to the utmost the capacity of the 
plants, particularly of those companies using coal 
in its manufacture. According to the Philadel¬ 
phia Public Ledger , the United Gas Improvement 
Company, in that city, sold 14,000 gas-ranges in 
1901, and by September, 1902, the sales ex¬ 
ceeded 37,000. The same company reported for 
September, 1902, an increase of thirty per cent. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


157 

in the consumption of gas over the same period 
of 1901. The sale of oil-stoves, as well as the 
consumption of oil, had also greatly increased. 
The newspapers reported families using for 
cooking purposes asbestos bricks soaked with oil; 
on the East Side in New York the poor were 
burning cocoanut shells bought of candy manu¬ 
facturers at fifteen cents a bag of sixty pounds; 
in Chicago, streets laid with wooden paving 
blocks were torn up and the material used as fuel; 
railroads disposed of old cross-ties to their em¬ 
ployees; in cases manufacturing plants resorted 
to the use of sawdust in their furnaces. De¬ 
spite the resort to such substitutes, not a few of 
the smaller industrial plants throughout the East 
were shut down,* or were running on short time; 


* Special investigations by Bradstreet correspondents 
at fifty cities and industrial centres east of the Missis¬ 
sippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers at the 
beginning of October indicated that iron smelting had 
been seriously curtailed, brick manufacturing had suf¬ 
fered, and small hand laundries crippled. Including fur¬ 
nace-employees in Eastern Pennsylvania, brickmakers in 



158 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


trolley lines changed their schedules to operate a 
fewer number of cars, and thousands of indus¬ 
tries were living a hand-to-mouth existence, not 
knowing what hour they would be compelled to 
suspend operations. The lack of good fuel 
affected the production of pig-iron, which in turn 
caused delays in foundries, thus interfering with 
the keeping of contracts. So greatly was busi¬ 
ness interfered with that large industrial concerns 
began inserting delay clauses in their contracts. 

Not only did the scarcity of fuel make expen¬ 
sive and uncertain the conduct of industries, post¬ 
pone the opening of public schools, greatly handi¬ 
cap religious and charitable organizations in their 
work, but the increase in the price of all fuels 
soon affected the price of those commodities into 
which they entered as an element in their cost 
of production. Laundries charged higher prices, 
bakers raised the price of bread, restaurants and 


and near Hudson Valley, and a large number of coal- 
handlers at tidewater docks, about twenty thousand men 
had been rendered idle by the strike, excluding, of course, 
the mine-workers. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


159 


cafes asked more money for food or reduced the 
quality and quantity of meals, steam-heating 
companies raised their rates, hotels and apart¬ 
ment-houses charged higher rents, and there was 
an advance in the price of many of the necessaries 
of life. 

Anthracite, in domestic sizes, was selling for 
$25 a ton, and in cases for as much as $30, pea 
sizes $12, and buckwheat $6 a ton. So valuable, 
in fact, had anthracite become that the bottoms of 
rivers in the three fields and in the vicinity of 
coal-docks near the large cities were dredged for 
the fuel. Bituminous coal for domestic use was 
retailing at $9 a ton. The larger industries were, 
of course, not affected by these high prices, hav¬ 
ing contracted for their yearly supplies at much 
lower prices long before the strike began. The 
poor on the East Side in New York were paying 
twenty-five cents a bucket, or seventy-five cents a 
bushel, and the prospect of suffering among this 
class for the lack of fuel was so appalling that 
charitable organizations held union meetings to 
devise some means of grappling with the pressing 


160 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


problem. Special societies of public-spirited citi¬ 
zens were formed and unusual efforts made to 
secure fuel for the more needy. 

According to the New York Health Commis¬ 
sioner, “ The death-rate from pneumonia and 
kindred diseases is (September 29) increasing 
rapidly, owing to insufficient heating of dwell¬ 
ings and other buildings, due to a scarcity of 
coal.” The New York correspondent of the 
Philadelphia Public Ledger stated * that 

“ if the coal strike continues, we are threatened in this 
city with a shutting off of the supply of gas and with 
an advance in the prices of many necessities of life. 
For instance, it was announced to-day that the price 
of rye bread had been advanced one cent a loaf on the 
East Side, owing to the increased cost of fuel. It is 
simply impossible to conceive what would be the con¬ 
sequences of a continued coal famine in connection with 
a spell of cold weather. Sickness, death, intense suffer¬ 
ing, perhaps starvation, darkness, riots, cessation of 
many industries, loss of work, blockade of rapid transit, 
stoppage of elevators—these are some of the dire pre¬ 
dictions that are made.” 


* Issue of October 8, 1902. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


161 


By the time some of the striking miners in the 
West Virginia and Virginia soft-coal fields re¬ 
sumed work in October the fuel famine was so 
general that the officials of the Norfolk & 
Western Railway, despite the statute of Virginia 
which prohibited the same, ordered the running 
of coal-trains on Sunday, “ in order to expe¬ 
dite the shipment of coal for the relief of com¬ 
munities and interests suffering and imperilled 
for the want of fuel.” Nearly all the coal-haul¬ 
ing railroads gave to fuels the preference of fast 
shipment over all other freight. The Treasury 
Department, on October 6, instructed the col¬ 
lectors at the principal ports of entry in the 
United States to afford every facility for the 
prompt delivery of the large quantity of coal 
which reports indicated was being imported. 
“ So far as it may be,” the instructions said, 
“ give consignments of coal the preference over 
everything else, and for the present solve all 
reasonable doubts in favor of the coal importer.” 
Offers of coal-lands, to be mined by the govern¬ 
ment without compensation to the donor during 


ii 


162 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


the continuance of the famine, were made to 
President Roosevelt. In New Jersey owners of 
timber-lands turned them over to the citizens in 
need of fuel; in that and other States the public 
sale of growing timber, to be cut from the lands 
by the purchaser, were freely advertized. 

Long before this state of affairs was reached, 
however, the public had been aroused to the 
perils threatening it and would have sooner 
forced peace between the contending parties had 
it possessed any recognized and definite means 
for making its wishes effective. The ordinary 
channels for expressing public sentiment through 
resolutions and petitions to State and Federal 
officials and legislative bodies were first resorted 
to. These were adopted in mass meetings of 
citizens and in regular and special sessions of 
debating and literary societies, labor unions, 
ministerial assemblages, political and reform 
clubs, good government organizations, and in so¬ 
cieties generally all over the country, as far west 
as San Francisco. Through these appeals were 
made to public-spirited men—to United States 


THE MINE WORKERS 163 

Senators, Congressmen, and others—to use their 
best efforts to end the costly struggle; the Civic 
Federation was urged to renewed efforts, and 
the presidents of the railroad mining companies 
were asked to submit all questions at issue to 
arbitration. 

The governor of Pennsylvania was petitioned 
to summon the State Legislature in special ses¬ 
sion for the enactment of a compulsory arbitra¬ 
tion law or to adopt other means to end the 
strike; he was called upon to take military pos¬ 
session of the anthracite mines and operate them 
in the name of the Commonwealth; to have 
recourse to the means for annulling the charters 
of the coal-carrying companies with the view of 
public ownership of the mines and to appoint 
receivers to operate the mining plants. 

The Peoples’ Alliance, which with the Public 
Alliance and the Workmans’ Alliance had been 
organized in the different towns of the anthra¬ 
cite region to bring about a settlement of the 
strike, favored compulsory arbitration, an eight- 
hour work-day law, and “ the enforcement of the 


164 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


article of the State constitution providing that 
any corporation which abuses the privileges 
granted therein shall have its charter annulled or 
revoked.” Thousands of letters, with the object 
of urging the two United States Senators from 
Pennsylvania to bring about a speedy settlement, 
were addressed to Senators Quay and Penrose 
by residents in the anthracite fields through the 
inauguration of an endless-chain system. Men 
prominent in public life—judges, lawyers, poli¬ 
ticians, bishops, journalists, and business men— 
in speeches and writings urged upon the miners, 
operators, and State and Federal officials some 
specific action looking to an end of the conflict. 
The “ correspondence” columns of the news¬ 
papers overflowed with communications suggest¬ 
ing all kinds of “ patent medicine” cures for the 
trouble. The Pennsylvania Republican State 
Committee, in a resolution, provided for the ap¬ 
pointment of a special committee of seven to 
bring about a settlement. A committee with a 
similar object was appointed by the National 
Association of Manufacturers. 


THE MINE WORKERS 


165 

Unable through these channels to make pub¬ 
lic opinion effective to the extent of securing 
peace in the anthracite industry, individuals in 
behalf of the public resorted to the courts of jus¬ 
tice. Upon the application of the New York 
American and Journal the attorney-general of 
New York summoned representatives of the 
hard-coal hauling and mining companies to show 
cause why proceedings should not be instituted 
against them under the Donnelly anti-trust law of 
that State.* In the State Supreme Court of Mas¬ 
sachusetts a bill in equity was filed asking for the 
appointment of a receiver for the coal-hauling 
and mining companies to carry on the business 
of mining and supplying coal to the public upon 
such terms and in such manner, and with such 


* The companies replied to the effect that they were 
not members of any combination contrary to the New 
York statutes; that under the laws of Pennsylvania it 
is expressly authorized to any railroad company of Penn¬ 
sylvania to purchase and hold the capital stock of the 
coal company, and that they are not members of any 
combination to fix prices of coal. 



166 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


agents and servants, and with such rates of 
wages and other conditions of employment, and 
at such prices for goods produced and sold as the 
court shall from time to time adjudge proper. 
In Pennsylvania the attorney-general was peti¬ 
tioned to grant the use of the name of the Com¬ 
monwealth in a suit against the Reading Rail¬ 
way Company to show cause why its charter 
should not be revoked for an alleged violation 
of the State constitution.* The vice-president 
and counsel of the Delaware & Hudson Rail¬ 
road Company, in a letter to President Roose- 


* The provision in question, Article XVII., Section 5, 
reads: “No incorporate company doing the business of 
a common carrier shall, directly or indirectly, prosecute 
or engage in mining or manufacturing articles for trans¬ 
portation over its works; nor shall such company, 
directly or indirectly, engage in any business than that 
of common carrier, or hold or acquire lands, freehold, or 
leasehold, directly or indirectly, except as shall be neces¬ 
sary for carrying on its business; but any mining or 
manufacturing company may carry the products of its 
mines and manufactories on its railroad or canal, not 
exceeding fifty miles in length” 



THE MINE WORKERS 


167 

velt, requested that the Chief Executive proceed 
in the courts, under the Sherman anti-trust law, 
against the United Mine Workers of America 
on the ground that it conspired to prevent inter¬ 
state commerce. 

With however great a degree of justice and 
effectiveness these appeals to the courts may have 
been answered finally, the necessity of the public 
was such that it could not wait for those decis¬ 
ions. The conditions were not those of ordinary 
times; some remedy had to be applied, and that 
immediately, for the intolerable state of affairs 
would no longer brook delay. 

Mass meetings everywhere were now demand¬ 
ing the immediate resumption of anthracite 
mining, even before a settlement of the differ¬ 
ences of the two parties to the conflict. The Na¬ 
tional Association of Manufacturers appointed a 
committee to devise some means whereby the 
manufacturers of the country might obtain 
enough coal to keep their plants in operation. 
The Common Council of Detroit called upon the 
mayors of cities and the governors of States 


168 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


affected most severely by the fuel famine to ap¬ 
point delegates to an interstate convention, to be 
held in Detroit on October 9, “ to consider ways 
and means to force a resumption of the coal pro¬ 
duction either by pressure of public opinion or by 
government intervention, which should be de¬ 
manded if other measures fail.” The Peoples' 
Coal League was organized at Springfield, 
Massachusetts, with the platform, “We demand 
that the Federal government own the coal-mines 
and administer them in the interests of the whole 
people." The Democratic party of New York 
State, in its platform, advocated the national 
ownership of the anthracite mines. 

Many efforts had been made in the meantime 
by individuals and organizations to bring about a 
settlement between the operators and the strik¬ 
ers, but all without avail. United States Sena¬ 
tors Quay and Penrose attempted repeatedly to 
find some way out of the difficulties; Governor 
Stone, Attorney-General Elkins, and State Sena¬ 
tor Flinn, of Pennsylvania, also strove in con¬ 
ferences with operators and officers of the miners' 


THE MINE WORKERS 169 

union to secure a settlement. In September, Gov¬ 
ernor Odell, of New York, and United States 
Senator Platt, of that State, joined the two 
United States Senators from Pennsylvania in a 
conference with presidents of the hard-coal haul¬ 
ing roads to devise some method of settlement; 
but this also failed, as did similar efforts on the 
part of the committee appointed by the National 
Association of Manufacturers. The operators 
steadfastly refused to submit the questions at 
issue to arbitration, and the mine-workers, at the 
same time, as persistently made known their in¬ 
tention to remain away from the mines all winter 
if necessary to the remedying of their grievances 
and the securing of their demands. But neither 
had measured accurately the power of aroused 
public opinion nor taken sufficiently into consid¬ 
eration the character of the man who was to 
direct that power in the channels where it would 
prove most effective. 

As early as June appeals and petitions of vari¬ 
ous kinds from all sections of the country and 
from all kinds of organizations began to reach 


170 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


President Roosevelt, urging action on the part of 
the Federal government in behalf of the suffer¬ 
ing public—“ the innocent party” to the conflict 
in the coal-fields. The New York Board of 
Trade and Transportation requested of him that 
he appoint a commissioner to investigate the sit¬ 
uation in the anthracite region, with a view of 
effecting an arbitration of the differences be¬ 
tween operators and miners. Similar requests 
came from boards of trade, ministerial meet¬ 
ings, and different organizations in various cities. 
An open appeal to the President to undertake a 
settlement of the strike was made by the Public 
Alliance of the coal-fields. Not a few resolutions 
petitioned for the calling of a special session of 
Congress to take action that would bring about 
peace in the anthracite industry. 

In response to these public appeals, President 
Roosevelt, on June 8, delegated Mr. Carroll D. 
Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, 
to undertake an investigation of the causes of the 
strike and the grounds of the differences between 
the operators and the miners. The Commissioner 


THE MINE WORKERS 171 

of Labor was in no sense to act as an arbitrator, 
—he was appointed simply as an investigator, that 
the President and the public might be correctly 
informed of the true situation. The President 
of the United States had absolutely no authority 
under the law or the constitution to interfere in 
any way,* what little power was formerly con¬ 
ferred upon him by the law of 1888 having been 
taken away by the repeal of that law in 1898. 
Mr. Wright made his report to the President on 
June 20, but it was not given to the public until 
September. It was made the basis for numerous 


* President Roosevelt appointed Mr. Wright under the 
clauses of the Act of June 13, 1888, creating the Depart¬ 
ment of Labor, which provide that “the Commissioner 
of Labor is also specially charged to investigate the 
causes of, and the facts relating to, all controversies and 
disputes between employers and employees as they may 
occur, and which may tend to interfere with the welfare 
of the people of the different States, and report thereon 
to Congress. He is also authorized to make special 
reports on particular subjects whenever required to do 
so by the President, or either house of Congress, or 
when he shall think the subject in his charge requires it.” 



172 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


discussions at Cabinet meetings of the issues in¬ 
volved in the strike, and it is believed a well- 
defined line of action had early been mapped out 
by the Federal government for the time when 
action on its part was thought to be opportune. 
Certain it is that President Roosevelt had never 
abandoned his intention of taking action in be¬ 
half of the public welfare when that became 
necessary. 

At the beginning of October, with failure ac¬ 
companying every attempt to terminate the 
strike, the prospect of a fuel famine at the open¬ 
ing of the winter months had become so threaten¬ 
ing as to overshadow all else in the public mind. 
Towards the November elections for Congress¬ 
men and those for choosing the chief executives 
of many of the State governments in the East 
there was general public apathy; returning tour¬ 
ists from the mountain and seashore, confronted 
with empty coal-bins, now added their cry to 
that of other consumers; industries were closing 
almost daily for lack of fuel; the price of 
all kinds of substitutes had risen beyond the 


THE MINE WORKERS 


173 


means of the poor and their suffering was be¬ 
ginning to be apparent in loud mutterings of dis¬ 
content; churches set aside special days for 
prayer and fasting; socialistic and worse doc¬ 
trines were spreading like wildfire in many com¬ 
munities; the public was being forced to that 
point where it was likely to justify any action, 
however radical or revolutionary, that would re¬ 
lease the coal for the markets. 

Such was the state of public feeling when 
Theodore Roosevelt, on October 1, invited repre¬ 
sentatives of the anthracite-hauling railroads and 
independent operators and of the United Mine 
Workers of America to a conference in Wash¬ 
ington, on Friday, October 3, the purpose being 
“ in regard to the failure of the coal supply, 
which has become a matter of vital concern to 
the whole nation.” Those present at the confer¬ 
ence were Mr. Roosevelt; Mr. P. C. Knox, 
United States Attorney-General; Mr. Carroll D. 
Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor; 
Mr. George B. Cortelyou, Secretary to President 
Roosevelt; Mr. George F. Baer, President of 


174 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


the Reading Railway system; Mr. W. H. Trues- 
dale, President of the Delaware, Lackawanna 
& Western Railroad Company; Mr. E. B. 
Thomas, Chairman of the Board of Control of 
the Erie Railroad Company; Mr. Thomas P. 
Fowler, President of the New York, Ontario 
& Western Railway Company; Mr. David 
Wilcox, Vice-President and General Counsel of 
the Delaware & Hudson Company; Mr. John 
Markle, representing the independent operators; 
Mr. John Mitchell, President of the United 
Mine Workers of America; Mr. Thomas D. 
Nicholls, President of District i, Mr. Thomas 
Duffy, President of District 7, and Mr. John 
Fahy, President of District 9, United Mine 
Workers. In explanation of his reasons for ask¬ 
ing these men to meet with him, Mr. Roosevelt 
said: 

“ I wish to call your attention to the fact that there 
are three parties affected by the situation in the anthra¬ 
cite trade: the operators, the miners, and the general 
public. The questions at issue which led to the situation 
affect immediately the parties concerned—the operators 


THE MINE WORKERS 


175 


and the miners; but the situation itself vitally affects 
the public. As long as there seemed to be a reasonable 
hope that these matters could be adjusted between the 
parties, it did not seem proper to me to intervene in any 
way. I disclaim any right or duty to intervene in this 
way upon legal grounds or upon any official relation 
that I bear to the situation; but the urgency and the 
terrible nature of the catastrophe impending over a large 
portion of our people in the shape of a winter fuel fam¬ 
ine impel me, after much anxious thought, to believe that 
my duty requires me to use whatever influence I person¬ 
ally can to bring to an end a situation which has become 
literally intolerable. I wish to emphasize the character of 
the situation, and to say that its gravity is such that I am 
constrained urgently to insist that each one of you realize 
the heavy burden of responsibility upon him. We are upon 
the threshold of winter with an already existing coal 
famine, the future terrors of which we can hardly yet 
appreciate. The evil possibilities are so far-reaching, so 
appalling, that it seems to me that you are not only justi¬ 
fied in sinking, but required to sink for the time being, 
any tenacity as to your respective claims in the matter 
at issue between you. In my judgment, the situation 
imperatively requires that you meet upon the common 
plane of the necessities of the public. With all the 
earnestness there is in me I ask that there be an imme¬ 
diate resumption of operations in the coal-mines in 
some such way as will without a day’s unnecessary delay 


176 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

meet the crying needs of the people. I do not invite a 
discussion of your respective claims and positions. I 
appeal to your patriotism, to the spirit that sinks personal 
considerations and makes individual sacrifices for the 
general good.” \ 

To this appeal Mr. Mitchell replied that he was 
very much impressed by it as well as with the 
gravity of the situation, but he disclaimed the 
responsibility for “ the terrible state of affairs.” 
He suggested that the questions in dispute be¬ 
tween the mine-workers and the operators be 
submitted to a tribunal to be appointed by the 
President of the United States. This proposition 
was later made in writing by the representatives 
of the mine-workers and is as follows: 

“We propose that the issues culminating in this strike 
shall be referred to you and a tribunal of your own selec¬ 
tion, and agree to accept your award upon all or any of 
the questions involved. If you will accept this responsi¬ 
bility and the representatives of the coal-operators will 
signify their willingness to have your decision incorpo¬ 
rated in an agreement for not less than one year or more 
than five years, as may be mutually determined between 
themselves and the anthracite coal mine-workers, and 
will pay the scale of wages which you and the tribunal 


THE MINE WORKERS 


177 

appointed by you shall award, we will immediately call 
a convention and recommend a resumption of work, upon 
the understanding that the wages which shall be paid 
are to go in effect from the day upon which work is re¬ 
sumed.” 

With Mr. Roosevelt's appeal and Mr. Mit¬ 
chell's proposition as a basis, each of the oper¬ 
ators presented a written reply, some of them at 
considerable length. Mr. Baer, assuming “ that 
a statement of what is going on in the coal-region 
will not be irrelevant," said: 

“We represent the owners of coal-mines in Pennsyl¬ 
vania. There are from fifteen to twenty thousand men 
at work mining and preparing coal. They are abused, 
assaulted, injured, and maltreated by the United Mine 
Workers. They can only work under the protection of 
armed guards. Thousands of other workmen are de¬ 
terred from working by the intimidation, violence, and 
crimes inaugurated by the United Mine Workers, over 
whom John Mitchell, whom you invited to meet you, is 
chief. I need not picture the daily crimes committed by 
the members of this organization. ‘ The domestic tran¬ 
quillity,’ which every constitution declares is the chief 
object of government, does not exist in the coal-regions. 
There is terrible reign of lawlessness and crime there. 
Only the lives and property of the members of the secret, 


13 


178 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


oath-bound order, which declares that the locals ‘ should 
have full power to suspend operations at collieries’ until 
the non-union men joined their order, are safe. Every 
effort is made to prevent the mining of coal, and, when 
mined, Mitchell’s men dynamite bridges and tracks, mob 
train-men, and by all manner of violence try to prevent 
its shipment to relieve the public. 

“ The Constitution of Pennsylvania guarantees protec¬ 
tion to life and property. In express terms it declares 
the right of acquiring, possessing, and defending property 
‘ to be inalienable.’ When riot and anarchy, too great to 
be appeased by the civil power occur, the governor of 
Pennsylvania lies bound to call out the State troops to 
suppress it. He must fearlessly use the whole power of 
the State to protect life and property and to establish 
peace—not an armed truce, but the peace of the law 
which protects every man at work and going to and 
from work. He has sent troops to the coal-regions. 
Gradually the power of the law is asserting itself. Un¬ 
less encouraged by false hopes, order will soon be re¬ 
stored, and then we can mine coal to meet the public 
wants. If the power of Pennsylvania is insufficient to 
re-establish the reign of law, the Constitution of the 
United States requires the President, when requested 
by the Legislature and the Governor, to ‘ suppress do¬ 
mestic violence.’ You see there is a lawful way to secure 
coal for the public. The duty of the hour is not to waste 
time negotiating with the fomenters of this anarchy and 


THE MINE WORKERS 


179 


insolent defiance of law, but to do as was done in the 
War of the Rebellion—restore the majesty of the law, 
the only guardian of a free people, and to re-establish 
order and peace at any cost. The Government is a con¬ 
temptible failure if it can only protect the lives and 
property and secure the comfort of the people by com¬ 
promising with the violators of law and the instigators 
of violence and crime. Just now it is more important 
to teach ignorant men dwelling among us, misled and 
used as tools by citizens of other States, that at whatever 
and any inconvenience to the public, Pennsylvania will 
use the whole power of government to protect not only 
the man who wants to work, but his wife and children 
while he is at work, and to punish every man who by 
instigation or by overt acts attempts to deprive any man 
of his liberty to work. 

“Under these conditions, we decline to accept Mr. 
Mitchell’s considerate offer to let our men work on terms 
he names. He has no right to come from Illinois to dic¬ 
tate terms on the acceptance of which anarchy and crime 
shall cease in Pennsylvania. He must stop his people 
from killing, maiming, and abusing Pennsylvania citizens 
and from destroying property. He must stop it because 
it is unlawful, and not because of any bargain with us. 
We will add to our offer ‘ to continue the wages existing 
at the time of the strike, and to take up at each colliery 
and adjust any grievance,’ a further condition: if the 
employers and employees at any particular colliery 


i8o THE SLAV INVASION AND 


cannot reach a satisfactory adjustment of any alleged 
grievances, it shall be referred to the judges of the 
Court of Common Pleas of the district in which the col¬ 
liery is situated for final determination.” 

The replies of the other operators were in a 
similar strain.* Mr. Markle said: 

“I now ask you to perform the duties vested in you 
as President of these United States, to at once squelch 
the anarchistic condition of affairs existing in the anthra¬ 
cite coal-regions by the strong arm of the military at 
your command. ... If you desire anthracite coal to be 
placed in the market quickly, take the necessary steps 
at once and put the Federal troops in the field and give 
to those desiring to work proper protection.” 

In addition to asking for protection, Mr. 
Truesdale requested 


* Mr. Thomas said that twenty men had been killed 
and over forty injured since the beginning of the strike. 
Mr. Markle claimed that there had been twenty-one mur¬ 
ders and a long list of brutal assaults. These charges 
against the United Mine Workers, President Mitchell 
characterized as untrue, saying that “if they will name 
the men, and will show that they have committed the 
murders, I will resign my position.” 



THE MINE WORKERS 181 

" that the civil branch of the United States Government, 
taking cognizance of and following the decisions of its 
courts rendered in litigation growing out of previous 
similar conditions, at once institute proceedings against 
the illegal organization known as the United Mine 
Workers’ Association, its well-known officers, agents, 
and members, to enjoin and restrain permanently it and 
them from continuing this organization and requiring 
them to desist immediately from conspiring, conniving, 
aiding, or abetting the outlawry and intolerable conditions 
in the anthracite regions, for which they, and they alone, 
are responsible.” 

All the operators at the conference refused to 
accept the proposition submitted by the officers 
of the United Mine Workers and declined to 
have any dealings whatsoever with them looking 
towards a settlement of the questions at issue. 
The meeting adjourned with the two sides to the 
conflict as far apart as ever. 

But the conference was not without its good 
results. These were damaging to the operators’ 
position; they were the death-knell to their 
cause. The attitude they took before the Chief 
Executive of the Nation (in the public mind 
there was no distinction between Mr. Roosevelt 


182 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


and President Roosevelt) was almost as intol¬ 
erable to the people as was the growing coal 
famine. Instead of meeting Mr. Roosevelt's sug¬ 
gestion in the spirit in which it was given, the 
public had witnessed the operators undertaking 
to tell him what his duty was in the situation! 
All over the country a wave of popular indigna¬ 
tion rolled rapidly and beat against the operators' 
citadel; it beat so fiercely that even the friends 
of the railroad presidents recognized, and many 
of the newspapers supporting their position 
openly declared, that a fatal mistake had been 
made in the attitude the operators took at the 
conference.* With public opinion now thor¬ 
oughly aroused as it had not been for years, the 


* Once before, in August, considerable public feeling 
had been aroused against the attitude of the operators by 
the statement of President Baer, in reply to a letter of 
Mr. W. F. Clark, of Wilkesbarre, that “ The rights and 
interest of the laboring man will be protected and cared 
for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men 
to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the con¬ 
trol of the property interests of the country, and upon the 
successful management of which so much depends.” 



THE MINE WORKERS 183 

failure of the Washington conference was but 
the successful beginning of Mr. Roosevelt's 
efforts to guard the general welfare. Having 
found a responsive channel for making its com¬ 
mands effective, the public, in mass meetings, 
appeals, petitions, and remonstrances, moved to 
the support of the Chief Executive of the Nation. 

On October 6 Mr. Roosevelt proposed to the 
President of the United Mine Workers, through 
Mr. Carroll D. Wright, that if Mr. Mitchell 
secured “ the immediate return to work of the 
miners in the anthracite regions the President 
will at once appoint a Commission to investigate 
thoroughly into all matters at issue between the 
operators and miners, and will do all within his 
power to obtain a settlement of those questions in 
accordance with the report of the Commission." 

President Mitchell replied two days later to the 
effect that “ we respectfully decline to advise our 
people to return to work simply upon the hope 
that the coal-operators might be induced or 
forced to comply with the recommendations of 
your Commission." 


184 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


At the same time, in answer to a proclama- 
mation of the President of the United Mine 
Workers, requesting the anthracite employees 
to ballot on the question whether or not they 
were being prevented, owing to lawlessness, 
from returning to work, the locals of the union 
in the three hard-coal fields, through the voting 
machinery of the organization, decided almost 
unanimously to continue the strike until the 
operators granted some concessions. 

President Roosevelt now appealed to the one 
man whose word was law in the anthracite in¬ 
dustry. This man was Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. 
On behalf of President Roosevelt a conference 
was had with Mr. Morgan, in New York, on 
October n, by Mr. Elihu Root, Secretary of 
War. Three days later a proposition from the 
presidents of the railroad mining companies for 
a settlement of the strike was in the hands of 
President Roosevelt. It provided for the ap¬ 
pointment of a Commission by the President of 
the United States “ to whom shall be referred 
all questions at issue between the respective 


THE MINE WORKERS 185 

companies * and their own employees, whether 
they belong to a union or not, and the decision of 
that Commission shall be accepted by us.” The 
Commission was to be constituted as follows: 

(1) an officer of the Engineer Corps of either the 
military or naval service of the United States; 

(2) an expert mining engineer, experienced in 
the mining of coal and other minerals, and not 
in any way connected with coal-mining proper¬ 
ties, either anthracite or bituminous; (3) one of 
the judges of the United States Courts of the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania; (4) a man of 
prominence, eminent as a sociologist; (5) a 


* The agreement was signed by George F. Baer, Presi¬ 
dent Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company, 
Lehigh & Wilkesbarre Coal Company, Temple Iron Com¬ 
pany; E. B. Thomas, Chairman Pennsylvania Coal Com¬ 
pany, Hillside Coal & Iron Company; W. H. Truesdale, 
President Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad 
Company; T. P. Fowler, President Scranton Coal Com¬ 
pany, Elkhill Coal & Iron Company; R. M. Olyphant, 
President Delaware & Hudson Company; and Alfred 
Walters, President Lehigh Valley Coal Company. 



186 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


man who, by active participation in mining and 
selling coal, is familiar with the physical and 
commercial features of the business. Immedi¬ 
ately upon its appointment the miners were to 
return to work and “ cease all interference with 
and persecution of any non-union men who are 
working or shall hereafter work.” The Com¬ 
mission was to fix the date when its findings 
were to be effective, and these were to govern 
the conditions of employment “ between the re¬ 
spective companies and their own employees for 
a term of at least three years.” 

This plan for a settlement was communicated 
to the representatives of the United Mine Work¬ 
ers of America, and with a few alterations, in¬ 
cluding the removal of the restrictions placed 
upon the President in making his selection of the 
Commission and the addition of a sixth member 
representing organized labor, for which latter the 
leaders were particularly insistent, it was agreed 
to by them. On October 17 public announcement 
was made of the appointment by President 
Roosevelt of Brigadier-General John M. Wilson, 


THE MINE WORKERS 


187 

Edward W. Parker,* * * § Judge George Gray,f Ed¬ 
gar E. Clark,^; Thomas H. Watkins, § and Bishop 
John L. Spaulding|| as members of the Commis¬ 
sion, with Carroll D. Wright as recorder. Later 
Mr. Wright was made a member of the Com¬ 
mission, making a total membership of seven. 
A meeting of the Executive Boards of the three 
anthracite districts at once called a delegate con¬ 
vention of the mine-workers “ to act on the prop¬ 
osition submitted by the President of the United 
States.” This convention met in Wilkesbarre, 
on Monday, October 20, with 662 delegates 
present authorized to cast 867 votes. The recom¬ 
mendation of the officers of the union “ that all 
mine-workers now on strike return to their for¬ 
mer positions and working-places and subm it to 
the Commission appointed by the Presid ent of 


* Statistician United States Geological Survey, 

f Of the United States Circuit Court. Appointed by 
President McKinley, 1899. 

$ Chief of the Order of Railway Conductors. 

§ Retired hard-coal operator, Scranton, Pennsylvania. 

|| Roman Catholic Bishop of Peoria, Illinois. 



188 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


the United States all questions at issue between 
the operators and mine-workers of the anthra¬ 
cite coal-fields” was adopted, the convention 
unanimously voted the strike at an end, and the 
men were instructed to resume their former posi¬ 
tions on Thursday, October 23. 

There was general rejoicing throughout the 
country when the miners returned to work; 
within the coal-fields the news that the strike was 
at an end was received by parades and demon¬ 
strations, accompanied by the ringing of bells 
and the blowing of whistles. In many places 
special services were held in churches of different 
denominations. The struggle had continued over 
five months—exactly one hundred and sixty-four 
days—and had subjected the institutions of or¬ 
ganized society to a most severe strain. 

The Brooklyn Eagle said: * 

“ The satisfaction that will be felt that war is to cease, 
and that mining is to be resumed, should not blind 
thoughtful men to the fact that the price paid for coal 


* Editorial, October 15, 1902. 



THE MINE WORKERS 189 

is the confessed failure of government, the palpable dis¬ 
appearance of law, amnesty, and forgiveness, if not con¬ 
donation or coronation, for organized resistance to law, 
and the recourse of the nation and the people to an 
extemporized substitute for the operation of constitutions 
and institutions which have been their bulwark and 
boast, and were formerly the exponent of their power 
and the object of their pride.” 

The Philadelphia Public Ledger classified the 
strike among “ the costliest and most dangerous 
conflicts that ever threatened the stability of gov¬ 
ernment and the peace of the country.”* “ The 
greatest economic contest, one full of dangerous 
political and social possibilities, with which the 
nation has at any time been confronted. ”f 
Through the terms of peace “ a great crisis in our 
history, the greatest, the most appalling of any 
since the surrender of rebellion at Appomattox, 
has passed.” $ In commenting upon the decision 
of the mine-workers’ convention in accepting the 
arbitration proposal, declaring the strike at an 


* Editorial, October 17, 1902. 
f Ibid., October 25. $ Ibid., October 17. 



190 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

end, and agreeing to return to work, the Public 
Ledger said: * 

“ It means so much to thoughtful men who gave full 
weight to the 1 intolerable situation’ which obtained 
throughout the anthracite region; there were portents 
within that sphere of unrest and discontent of possible, 
or probable, consequences which it was feared might 
shake or topple to the ground the supporting pillars of 
the temple of organized society and the orderly supremacy 
of government. In the affected territory there were 
hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children at 
whose doors knocked not only hard times, but who were 
threatened by cold, hunger, and sickness. Outside the 
strike-region the very poor, and even people of better 
fortune, were brought face to face with a coal famine, 
which meant a heavy tax upon their limited resources, 
and to vast multitudes of industrial workers the with¬ 
drawal of work and wages. The situation was * intolera¬ 
ble’ from every point of view while the operators and 
miners stood in angry antagonism, and with stubborn in¬ 
sistency kept all apart, refusing to be reconciled. There 
were possibilities of peril and suffering to the country 
which no one could contemplate without trepidation. Men 
of years, experience, and knowledge perceived that all 
the prevailing conditions of the contest were fraught with 


* Editorial, October 22. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


191 

extraordinary dangers to our social and political insti¬ 
tutions. It was as if chaos were impending over the 
country.” 

Apart from this aspect of the situation the 
money cost of the strike was enormous; the 
Anthracite Strike Commission estimated that it 
would reach $100,000,000. This was the price 
to the public. When we consider the cost to 
the two parties engaged in the struggle, no accu¬ 
rate figures can of course be given, as the dif¬ 
ferent elements entering into this cost are not 
subject to mathematical measurement in the ab¬ 
sence of facts bearing on many of them. From 
the point of view of one or the other of the two 
parties to the contest there were compensating 
advantages which made the cost to each much 
less than would at first appear. What seemed 
a cost to these was in most cases merely a de¬ 
ferred payment. 

Take the question of production, for example. 
While it is true that probably 20,000,000 tons of 
anthracite would have been mined if there had 
been no suspension, yet this amount of coal 


192 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


was not destroyed by the strike—it was not lost 
to the mining companies. It remained in the 
ground unimpaired, to be mined later. Besides, 
if this amount had been mined during the sum¬ 
mer months, it is likely that sixty per cent.* of 
it would have been sold to householders under 
the discount plan f which would have gone into 
effect on April i if there had been no strike. As 
events turned out, this coal, when it was sent to 
market, brought a much higher price per ton 
than it would have sold for if it had been deliv¬ 
ered to consumers during the summer4 It is 


* Forty per cent, of the total anthracite production is 
sold in “ small sizes” for steam purposes at low prices in 
competition with soft coal. 

f In recent years the anthracite railroads inaugurate 
on April i discount prices on domestic sizes,—being 50 
cents a ton discount for April, 40 cents a ton for May, 
30 cents for June, 20 cents for July, 10 cents for August, 
with regular winter prices beginning in September. 

t The prevailing price per ton for domestic use during 
the winter months following the strike was $6.75, an in¬ 
crease of 50 cents a ton over prices the winter before 
and $1 more than for April, 1901. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


193 

also important to remember that had all this 
coal been mined, the companies would have had 
to meet the expense of storing and rehandling a 
portion of it before the winter needs of the con¬ 
sumer took it off their hands. This storage 
expense was greatly lessened by the coal remain¬ 
ing in the ground. 

In other ways expenses were reduced by the 
suspension. Wages were not paid to the striking 
mine-workers, and hundreds of other employees 
who were forced into idleness; the payment of 
royalties on coal was postponed; in cases cars 
and engines of the hard-coal hauling roads 
brought in a revenue by being rented to bitu¬ 
minous-coal hauling roads whose freight the sus¬ 
pension of anthracite mining had increased be¬ 
yond their usual facilities for handling it, the 
increase in the traffic resulting from a transfer 
of the demand for fuel to the bituminous 
product. In the case of the Pennsylvania Rail¬ 
road, the cutting off of anthracite production 
resulted in benefit to that company, as it was able 
to increase its soft-coal and coke traffic more than 
13 


i 9 4 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

enough to compensate that lost to it from the 
closing of its anthracite mines.* 

Similar difficulties are encountered if an at¬ 
tempt is made to calculate the damages to the 
mining properties as an element in the cost of the 
strike. That these damages, resulting from the 
flooding of the mines, the falling in of the roofs, 
the decaying of the timber, the accumulation of 
gas, etc., were very great in some sections there 
is no doubt, but all the facts for the entire region 
and for all the companies and individual op¬ 
erators are not obtainable. State Mine Inspector 
William Stein, of the Sixth Anthracite District, 
having jurisdiction over thirty-six collieries in 
the Schuylkill field, informed the writer that in 
his district alone five collieries had been perma¬ 
nently abandoned by reason of the strike. He 
estimated the loss in each case at $300,000. I 
learned from a representative of the Philadel- 


* Up to September 13 the Pennsylvania Railroad lines 
east of Pittsburg and Erie had hauled 5,000,000 tons more 
of soft coal and 1,000,000 tons more of coke than for 
the same period in 1901. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


195 


phia & Reading Coal & Iron Company, which 
company owned four of the collieries referred to, 
that some of them would soon have been aban¬ 
doned any way, despite the strike, and that the 
coal seams which the other abandoned plants 
would have mined were to be worked in connec¬ 
tion with other collieries of the same company 
at relatively less expense. In the Seventh An¬ 
thracite District, Mine Inspector Edward Bren¬ 
nan estimated for the writer that the total cost 
of the damages to the thirty operations within 
his jurisdiction would not exceed $10,000. Even 
if it were possible to give an estimated cost of the 
damages to mine property during the suspension, 
the question would be in order, What percentage 
of this damage would have resulted if there had 
been no strike? with the result that no satisfac¬ 
tory answer could be given. Another item which 
cannot be estimated was the resulting damages to 
boilers, engines, pumps, and other expensive ma¬ 
chinery following the employment of new and 
less skilled men to take the places of the striking 
engineers, firemen, and pumpmen. There was 


196 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

also an expense to the companies in the hiring 
of several thousand additional guards as coal and 
iron policemen to protect the mining properties. 

One very real and what is likely to be a perma¬ 
nent cost of the strike to the hard-coal mining 
companies is in the loss of certain anthracite 
markets to the bituminous product. 

It is just as difficult to estimate the cost of the 
strike to the mine-workers as it has proven to 
be for the railroad mining companies. The strike 
was carried on during the warm summer months, 
when the demand for mine-labor was at its mini¬ 
mum, which meant that some of the men would 
have been idle all the time or all the men some 
of the time, even if there had been no suspension. 
For this reason, even if we estimate that nearly 
$25,000,000 would have been paid in wages to 
the mine-workers if they had continued at work, 
it would not follow that this measured the cost 
of the strike to the mine-employees, because over 
25,000 who left the region were securing wages 
from other sources. Besides, the men were idle 
during that part of the year when the cost of 


THE MINE WORKERS 


197 

living - was at its minimum: there was practically 
no coal to buy, fewer and less costly garments 
supplied the need for clothing, and food was rela¬ 
tively cheaper, in cases the latter being secured 
through farming small plots of ground, by hunt¬ 
ing and fishing, and by means of the unusually 
large huckleberry harvest throughout the coal¬ 
fields. While the postponing of the payment 
for house rent and the running of accounts 
at the local stores only transferred these charges 
to some future time when they would have to be 
met, yet it is also true that when that time did 
come the men had higher wages with which to 
meet them. During the strike the anthracite 
mine-workers were also relieved from the pay¬ 
ment of church and society contributions and 
dues,* which otherwise they would have had to 
pay. 


* The financial support of missionary pastors and others 
of different denominations located in the anthracite region 
being cut off by the strike, special offerings for them 
were taken up in other churches of the respective de¬ 
nominations outside the fields. At a meeting of the 



198 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


In addition to these—we might call them com¬ 
pensating advantages—the strikers were the 
beneficiaries of a wide-spread system of relief, 
which was undertaken in August by the United 
Mine Workers of America, and which continued 
until after the close of the strike. This system 
was inaugurated among the strikers after nearly 
all the treasuries of the locals and districts in the 
anthracite region had been depleted and many 
of the members had spent their own bank sav¬ 
ings, some even going to the extent of mort¬ 
gaging their homes. 

The first step looking towards furnishing or¬ 
ganized relief to the strikers was taken by the 
special national convention of the United Mine 
Workers of America, held in Indianapolis the 


Archdiocesan Catholic Total Abstinence Union in Phila¬ 
delphia, in July, all societies in the coal-region that were 
in financial difficulties by reason of the strike were ex¬ 
empted from the payment of the percentage tax for 
1901-02. Mine-employees on strike, who were members 
of the United Mine Workers, were relieved from the 
payment of regular dues and special relief assessments. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


199 

third week in July. This convention appropri- 
ated $50,000 from the national treasury for the 
immediate use of the three anthracite districts, 
appealed to all districts, sub-districts, and local 
unions within the organization to donate as large 
sums as possible from their treasuries, levied an 
assessment of ten per cent, on the gross earnings 
of all members of locals in particular districts 
and of one dollar per week on all members of 
locals in other districts,* and assessed twenty- 
five per cent, of the sums paid as wages or salary 
to national, district, and sub-district officers and 
organizers. From these sources f a total of 


* The assessment per working member of the union 
amounted to about the same under either plan. 

f The assessments became effective July 16, 1902. From 
them alone the strike leaders expected to raise about 
$240,000 a week. To support the 750,000 dependents, 
which number, exclusive of the mine-employees, it was 
estimated were left in want by the strike, the officers of 
the union calculated that they would need $500,000 a 
week. Half of this was provided for by the assess¬ 
ments; the remaining half it was expected would come 
from the public and the trade unions. 



200 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


$2,225,370 was secured, of which $258,344 was 
in voluntary contributions from districts and 
locals, and $1,967,026 from special assess¬ 
ments.* 

The special convention had also appealed to 
the public and the trade unions for financial 
assistance. This was answered by the inaugura¬ 
tion of a general subscription movement among 
labor organizations all over the United States. 
Some levied regular weekly assessments on their 
members; some had weekly voluntary contribu¬ 
tions; others set aside a specified time one day 
each week and all the wages of the men earned 
during that time (usually one hour) went to the 
support of the miners; and special meetings and 
conventions of State and national organizations 
voted lump sums (in cases as high as $10,000) 
in addition to taking up collections among their 
members. These contributions came from rail¬ 
road-employees, bottle-blowers, workingmen in 


* Report of Secretary-Treasurer Wilson to the Four¬ 
teenth Convention. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


201 


the building trades, typographers, carpenters 
and joiners, garment-workers, iron-moulders, 
painters, upholsterers, steam and hoisting en¬ 
gineers, plasterers, tile and slate roofers, firemen, 
structural ironworkers, plumbers, longshoremen, 
boot- and shoemakers, seamen, marine firemen, 
hotel-keepers, theatrical employees, bricklayers, 
elevator-erectors, granite-cutters, and thousands 
of other workingmen identified with different 
trades and callings. The contributions were for¬ 
warded from points as far away as Porto Rico, 
Wales, Australia, etc. Most of the contributors 
were identified, through their own particular 
union, with the American Federation of Labor, 
which latter organization, through its Executive 
Council, had, on October n, issued an appeal to 
the public and to organized labor for funds in aid 
of the miners, in addition to having previously 
endorsed the appeal of the United Mine Workers. 
The American Federation of Labor suggested in 
its appeal that the public form relief committees 
in each city and town and solicit financial and 
other contributions; that the hour between ten 


202 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


and eleven o'clock each Monday morning be 
designated as “ miners' hour," and the wages 
earned during that time by the working people 
of the country be contributed to the strikers; that 
ministers of all denominations make a special 
plea to their congregations each Sabbath morn¬ 
ing for the miners and their families and that 
they act as relief committees among their parish¬ 
ioners ; that the newspapers solicit contributions, 
and that entertainments be planned to aid the 
strikers. 

The contributions of the general public were 
secured in various ways by the assistance of or¬ 
ganized labor. One of the means employed was 
Sunday house-to-house canvassing by volunteers, 
for which purpose the large cities were divided 
into districts, usually corresponding to the politi¬ 
cal divisions into wards.* Another method was 
the distribution of glass contribution globes 

* In Philadelphia this work was under the supervision 
of the United Trades Association, whose canvassers by 
October 5, as a result of six Sunday collections, had 
secured a total of over $13,000. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


203 


among business houses and in public places.* 
The observance of Labor Day throughout the 
country on September 1 was made an occasion 
for taking contributions in behalf of the mine- 
workers. These were in parades,—large, out¬ 
stretched American flags being used to collect the 
money along the line of march,—in mass meet¬ 
ings, and picnics, f In nearly every large city, 
monster demonstrations were held, at which the 
strike leaders made appeals for contributions. 
Two bands and a glee club, composed of mine- 
workers from the coal-fields, toured the large 
Eastern cities for subscriptions. Special contri¬ 
butions for the support of particular nationalities, 
such as the Poles and Lithuanians, were made by 
their fellow-countrymen in the United States. 
Subscriptions from mass meetings as far away 


* The Allied Building Trades Council undertook this 
work in Philadelphia, as much as $2500 being reported in 
one week. 

f The Labor Day picnic at Philadelphia netted over 
$1200, while more than $3730 was collected in outstretched 
American flags in the parades in Chicago. 



204 THE SLAV INVASION AND 

as Butte, Montana, and Portland, Oregon, were 
sent in to the national headquarters of the union. 
From all these sources—the trade unions and the 
public—the sum of $419,954 was contributed, 
an amount much less than the United Mine 
Workers had counted upon securing from that 
quarter. From all sources a total of $2,654,325 
was subscribed to the relief fund, of which 
$1,890,202 was distributed as aid among the 
anthracite mine-workers.* 

Under the provisions of the resolution adopted 
by the special national convention authorizing 
the establishment of the relief fund, all contribu¬ 
tions made from the national office to the anthra¬ 
cite region were “ divided pro rata to each anthra¬ 
cite district in accordance with the number of 
miners and mine-laborers in each of them as 
shown by the most recent coal reports. ,, This 
gave to District 1 (the Wyoming field) fifty- 
three per cent., to District 7 (the Lehigh field) 


* Report of Secretary-Treasurer Wilson to the Four¬ 
teenth Convention. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


205 


twelve per cent., and to District 9 (the Schuyl¬ 
kill field) thirty-five per cent. The system for 
distributing the amounts to those in need was set 
forth in a secret circular issued from strike 
headquarters in Wilkesbarre, on July 30. 

Under its provisions each local union selected a 
relief committee, whose duty it was to ascertain 
the names of persons actually in need of help and 
whose own resources were exhausted. The num¬ 
ber of such persons and the amount of money 
necessary each week to supply them with food 
was then reported to the district secretary- 
treasurer by these relief committees. In the 
meantime, each applicant, whether a' union or a 
non-union mine-worker, was furnished a relief 
order upon a local merchant, the face of the order 
giving the number of the local issuing it, with 
place and date, the name of the grocer, as well 
as that of the applicant, with the latter’s resi¬ 
dence, the number in his family, and the amount 
for which the order was drawn. On the reverse 
side, blanks were arranged to insert the date, 
name of applicant, quantity and price of articles 


206 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


secured. When goods to the face value of the 
order had been bought, the latter was signed 
by both the merchant and the person receiving 
the goods and then returned to the relief com¬ 
mittee, which presented it to the district secre¬ 
tary-treasurer for payment. These officers re¬ 
ceived the money with which to pay the bills 
direct from the national office of the union. 
These store orders enabled the union to carry a 
heavy debt two or three weeks ahead of the re¬ 
lief that was being contributed to national head¬ 
quarters. The secret circular to the locals re¬ 
commended “ that all persons receiving orders 
for supplies be advised to purchase only plain, 
wholesome food, as we must make the money at 
our disposal reach as far as possible. We trust 
that all those who have funds of their own, or 
who can pull through without help from the 
organization, will refrain from applying for aid.” 

In the Wyoming field the basis for distribu¬ 
ting relief was two dollars and fifty cents every 
two weeks to a family, with fifty cents additional 
for each child; single men were allowed one 


THE MINE WORKERS 


207 


dollar and twenty-five cents. In the Schuylkill 
district the sums from the national office were 
apportioned among the locals according to the 
number of employees at the particular mine the 
local represented. Then the local distributed the 
amount it received as its members decided. In 
some the distribution averaged sixty cents a 
week for each workman at the mine; in others 
the money was divided equally among all mem¬ 
bers, regardless of the need for relief; in others 
the total amount was divided among only those 
in want; some locals did not receive any aid at 
all from the national offices, being able to take 
care of their own men and families. At Sha- 
mokin, in the Schuylkill field, towards the end of 
the strike, about twenty thousand applied regu¬ 
larly for relief, which induced the union to estab¬ 
lish five commissaries or stores. The union 
bought the goods at wholesale by the carload lot 
and then distributed them among the applicants 
through the store-order system, at times disposing 
of as many as five hundred barrels of flour a 
week. These stores were continued by the United 


208 THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Mine Workers for months after the strike was 
declared at an end, in order to support the large 
number of mine-employees who were unable to 
secure immediate employment until repairs had 
been made to the mining properties and the water 
had been pumped out of the mines. 

All this money cost of the strike, whether 
counted at first as a loss to the mining com¬ 
panies or to the striking mine-workers, will event¬ 
ually have been transferred to the people—“ the 
innocent victim to the conflict.” What has not 
already been paid in the cost of moving and 
maintaining the troops in the region,* in the 
expense of the Commission f appointed by Presi¬ 
dent Roosevelt to arbitrate the difficulties, in 
the contributions to supply relief to the strikers, 
in the higher prices for coal and substitute fuels 
the people were compelled to resort to during 
and following the struggle, etc., will in the final 
analysis come from the pockets of the coal-con- 

* Nearly $1,000,000. 

t Congress appropriated $50,000, but the cost of the 
Commission’s work will exceed that amount. 



THE MINE WORKERS 


209 


suming public in higher prices for anthracite. 
This great money cost of the five months’ in¬ 
dustrial war is surely an enormous charge to the 
public. But if the people have learned well the 
one great lesson the strike teaches, perhaps the 
cost is not any too great. 

This lesson is that unrestricted immigration 
lacking intelligent control carries in its train evils 
to the individual and to organized society for 
which the general welfare demands rational ac¬ 
tion, in order that American institutions may 
more and more come to be in practice what they 
really are in theory. 

The coming of the Slav into the hard-coal 
fields was the primary or fundamental cause oper¬ 
ating within the anthracite region to produce 
the strikes of 1900 and 1902. The other forces 
which had a part in bringing about these in¬ 
dustrial disturbances were based upon and were 
put into operation by this invasion. This is 
true despite the important part played in these 
struggles by the activity of the United Mine 
14 


2io THE SLAV INVASION AND 


Workers in extending its jurisdiction over the 
anthracite employees. For this activity to be¬ 
come in any way effective the self-interest of the 
English-speaking hard-coal workers had to be 
appealed to. They responded only because they 
saw in this organization a means for remedying 
the intolerable conditions of employment which 
the Slav invasion had brought about in the an¬ 
thracite industry. 

When we stop a moment to think of the enor¬ 
mous money cost of the conflict, of the loss in life 
and property, of the strain, in instances almost to 
the breaking-point, that was put upon the insti¬ 
tutions intended to safeguard society and the in¬ 
dividual, and of the far-reaching consequences, 
untraceable in all their manifestations, which in¬ 
variably grow out of such struggles, one may 
well ask whether it is not high time that atten¬ 
tion be given to this problem of unrestrained and 
uncontrolled immigration. This is all the more 
to be thoughtfully considered because the conflict 
which the Slav has precipitated in the anthracite 
region is by no means at an end. Strikes and 


THE MINE WORKERS 


211 


lockouts and general industrial unrest through¬ 
out that whole section of Pennsylvania are likely 
to engage our deepest concern for many years. 
But this is no reason for being pessimistic. 
Forces for good are already at work. The dan¬ 
ger lies in our neglect of the principal that “ Eter¬ 
nal vigilance is the price of liberty/’ for that lib¬ 
erty, with the institutions which established and 
which are intended to preserve it, as well as much 
that goes to make American institutions our pride 
and boast, is in peril. 
































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